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ZXAppeal is a monthly 
newsletter put out by the 
Vancouver Sinclair Users Group. 

For more information on the 

group and ZXAppeal see the backcover. 


iii 0i swis kk ci dam ad 9 
SIR CLIVE.................. 12 
MERI La nd kes e kata ke 13 
A ÈS e EE 14 
LE FA A eee 14 
VINCE AGAIN............. 15 
GL PROM ka ei 18 
WL PRGM E 19 
BUCO e EE 19 
DICK ON JACK............. 20 


2000. THUNL EE 24 
BRTIUDIES a. das Da 24 
QDOS EXPLAINED ........ 25 
PCCFA LETTER........... 26 
PCCFA NOTICE........... 27 
SASL- PRGM.............. 28 
SPECTRUM PRGM....... 29 
AA (LS) EES 1 


3 
ZXWORD SOLUTION....32 


...gone fishin’ 


EE AE elt e e EE ie, EE EC EM 


The last time we spoke I was asking how 
you'd enjoyed the winter. Now I'm 
asking how'd your summer go? Weil time 
does fly by. As most of you know, I'm 
passing on the Editor's Baton after 
this issue. Not because I no longer 
enjoy putting the n/i together but 
because of the frustration that comes 


from not being able to produce a n/I of 
the standard I try to keep to. This is 
mainly due to a lack of new material. 
Because I enjoy the n/1 I'm more than 
willing to assist whoever wants to have 


a shot a being the n/l Editor. With 
all that said we do have a bundle of 
good contributions for this issue: 


Harvey did not let us down and is here 
with a number of interesting things: 
Guido tells us about his adventures in 
MSDOS-land; Vince is along with two 
nice articles - adding a Serial Port to 
the ZX81, and one about something 
called a Cross Assembler; Gerd relates 
his visit to a Sinclair QL Fair in 
Germany this summer; Marie comes in 
with a really neat article for all 
those who just aren't sure where they 
are; the PCCFA is along with notice of 
their up-coming fair; and we have a big 
bunch of other good stuff including an 
article about Sir C's latest forays as 
well as some very interesting reprints 
from the exchange n/ls. All in all it 
should be a fun time. 


Thanks, it's been fun, 


KKK KR KKK KKK KE KKK KEK KKK KK KK KKK KKK KF 
PITS PUR co wick E EE E 


...it is reported that the Milwaukee TS 


Fair was very well done with a small 
but very enthusiastic crowd of about 
120 turning out for the two days in 


early June. Apparently the vendors did 
better business than the previous year 
at the Capital Fest in Washington, D.C. 
There is talk of next years event being 
back in the mid-west. 

...Jack Dohany wrote to advise that his 
constant meddling with WordMaster has 
resulted in Version 2.@. The original 
WM blow my socks off when I came upon 
it in Australia but little did I 
realize what would result after 
introducing Jack “ta. it. at the. DE, 
Fair. Jack has done a superb job of 
upgrading an already fine program. Now 
it's only incredible! 


2 


program 


..would you believe a CD-ROM for a 
Sinclair machine? Word out of Britain 
says that a software house has put 30 
of their best Spectrum games onto a 
standard CD which is loaded into a 


Spectrum from a standard CD player. The 
fit includes the CD player to Spectrum 
connecting cable, cassette tape of MC 
to boost baud rate of the 
Speccy to match the CD,program 
instructions for the 30 games, and the 
CD. 

...UPDATE MAGAZINE has a new captain. 
After three years of being a 
one-man-band and now looking forward to 
the chance to resume his other loves, 
Bill Jones has handed the helm over to 
Frank Davis of the Indiana Sinclair 
Timex User Group. Frank has been the 
editor of the ISTUG newsletter and also 
has been responsible for the previous 
Mid-West TS get-togethers. Frank and 


his lovely wife Carol together will be 
bringing us UPDATE MAGAZINE quarterly 
starting with the July'96 issue. 
Everyone interested in Timex and 
Sinclair machines should subscribe to. 
UPDATE! Only $18.00 US a year (maybe a 
little more in Canada). Write to: 


UPDATE MAGAZINE, P.O. Box 1095 PERU, IN 
46970, U.S.A. 
...Nigel Serle has come 


rather neat marketing plan. 


with a 
If one is 
of computer: 


up 


in the market for any kind 

hardware or other stuff one calls Nigel 
for the best price. He takes your 
credit card number and quotes the 


lowest price available for the product. 


If you want to go with his price you 
pay Nigel 1% of the total as his fee 
and he puts you in touch with the 


dealer offering the price. If you don't 
you say no thanks and hang up with no 
further cost to you. Apparently Nigel 


maintains a very large database of 
products, dealers and prices from all 
over the continent. 

...the latest issue of Sinc-Link the 
n/l of the Toronto UG was received - in 
my view it has to be the most 
professionally produced newsletter 
around. Chock full of new material, 
with emphasis on the  LARKEN dos.. 
Latest issue had to be THIRTY-FIVE 
pages! 

...the Johnson City, NY, TS User Group 
has gone over to MSDOS. Their n/1l, 


SINCUS, has folded after eight years. 
...The Las Vegas UG's  n/l still looks 
good,(produced on an MSDOS machine), 
but is more MSDOS than Sinclair. 

...the Plotter; the n/1 of the CCAT/S 


_——_— = m = 


fo. e 
that 
his 


Larry Kenny is 
DTP program and 
utilize the Sequential 
Access facility of his LARKEN 
The DTP program will include 
a 55,900 word spelling checker. Hope 
Larry runs his docs through the 
spelling checker. 

..the grandaddy of TS user groups in 
North America, the Sinclair Timex User 
Group of the Boston Computer Society 
has folded due to high costs of 
belonging to the BCS and sagging 
interest. BUT, like the Phoenix, they 
have arisen from their own ashes as the 
New England QL User Group. 

.word from across the pond indicates 
that all is not well with the Spectrum 
emulating SAM computer, extensively 
reported on here in the April/89 issue. 
It is said that after a rocky 
introduction of the machine, sales were 


jw, 
© 
Ui 
| 

S 


not as brisk as was hoped resulting in 
Miles Gordon Technologies calling in 
the receivers. Hope this is not so as 


the SAM uas the first exciting thing to 
come along on the British: computing 
Scene for a long time. 


little hard to 
computer mag 
Sinclair User 
mentions 


.now this one is a 
understand but a British 
reports that the Danish 
Magazine "Sinclair Freakeren" 


the existence of a ZX-81 emulator for 
the -Atari ST. An ST that thinks it's a 
2K  ZX? Bizarre! Same magazine reports 


that a Hard Drive is now available for 
the Spectrum. 


KKKK KKK KK KKK KK KK KKK KKK KEK KK KK KKK KKK X. X. 


RENEWING MEMBERS: 


last reported the following 


have renewed: 


Since 
members 


Aurel Boisvert,Ken Gamey,Rusty Townsend 
Neil Trylsson,Warren Jackson,Harry Slot 
Real Gagnon,James Hunkins,Ken Abramson, 
‘Harvey Taylor,Hugh Polley, Eric Sakara, 
Bob Barnett,Doug Jeffery,Ike Walker, 
Marie Kendall,Chung Chow, Ken Grant, 
John Sampson,Al Albrecht,Seward Warner. 
Lionel Keeping,Larry Anderson, 


NEW MEMBERS: 
John Regan, Kelowna, B.C. 


Nick Nicholis, Terrebonne, Que 
Ron Desind, North Miami, Florida 


KEK KKK KKK K KKK KEK KKK KKK KK KK KKK KKKKKKKKS 


..meeting dates 


| . SEPT/90 ` A 
vin 


: is A1 
1415 B HP 


ZE 


Wës 


MEETING DATES FOR 1990-91: 


September 14 
October 12 
November 9 
December 14 


January 11 
February 8 
March 8 
April 12 
May 10 


June 14 


March 9/90 Minutes 


-by your humble scribe 


We were back downstairs again for this 
meeting ‘cause the kids took over upstairs 
again. At 19:25, when Gerd arrived, there 
were 12 stalwart sorts present. The meeting 
was subtly shifted towards telecomm; Glenn 
Read had a monstrous old terminal he had 
brought in. The joke was the built-in 
microwave oven for the midnight hacker. 

Early in the meeting it was mentioned that 
there was an interesting article on hacking in 
the March/90 Harper's magazine. Harry Slot 
relayed the difficulties of using a modem with 
a party line. The old “neighbour who thinks 
the phone is broken ‘cause of the modem 
tones" syndrome. Rusty Townsend told of the 
difficulties he was having getting a 2400 baud 
modem to work with some BBS's. There was 
a lot of discussion of error protocols and 
modem standards while trying to suss out an 
answer. Harvey passed on a modem booklet 
[Data Communication Concepts] which he 
got free from USR through Byte magazine. 

There was an article in the Vancouver Sun 
about User Groups which included a few 
quotes from Gerd. Gerd enjoyed giving us his 
version of the interview as opposed to what 
got printed in the paper. 

Rusty told us about the computer fair in 
Kent, Oregon. There was a discussion on the 
PCCFA. 

Rod Humphreys did not make the meeting, 
so there was no Editor or Treasurer's 
report.(Bad back popped up, or is that 
out?...Ed.) 

The hardware SIG reports that not much 
is going on. An eprom eraser & a universal 
power supply have been built. 


Harry reports the 1000 library is in "a hell 
of a mess." There are tapes missing. He is 
sorting the tapes before producing a listing. 
Gerd says the book library is looking for 
lenders. 

Vince told us about the Sinclair program 
section on the Frog Hollow BBS 
[(604)469-0264]. He is putting files up there 
constantly, I notice. This report turned into a 
general discussion on BBS's. 

At about this point, Glenn Read fired up his 
terminal with a null loop and started playing 
with it. As one-on-one conversations became 
the rule, the meeting evolved into a gabfest 
around the hardware. 


May 11/90 Minutes 


-by your 'umble scribe 


It was somehow so very anti-climactic. 
During the preceding month I have had 
several "what is going to become of VSUG" 
conversations and I had the impression that 
the club was going to unravel this month. 
Well it didn't happen. As a matter of fact, the 
topic was not even raised. As another matter 
of fact, it is now appropriate, I believe, to 
raise the question of just what VSUG is going 
to evolve into? Further, the fact that Rod is 
going to do one final ZXAppeal, brings a 
certain urgency to the matter. Whether this is 
simply a willful blindness which will pass or a 
recognition that we have generated a rather 
unique group of electronics enthusiasts who 
have much to share, it is undeniable that the 
Sinclair component of our raison d'etre is 
receding. During meetings it is not 
uncommon to see Osbornes, KayPro's & 
Harry's hardware; while in our homes nearly 
everyone has MS-DOS, CP/M, Amiga or 
Atari equipment. 

For these reasons, I am brought to the 
ultimate heresy for a mere scribe; namely 
reporting not only what happened, but also 
what was thought. 

(This latter portion will be called the 
Virtual Minutes, in deference to my dearly 
departed memory which will be paged in from 
disk momentarily.) 

When I arrived, there were a dozen or so 
folk sitting around the table. We were 
upstairs in the boardroom again. Most of the 
meeting was of an informal nature; groups of 
two or four pursuing particular topics. 


Minutes June 8/99 


— — oh 


When Gerd arrived at 19:58, there were 
14 hardy souls present. The first item Gerd 
raised was the upcoming non-PCCFA fair at 
MacPherson Centre. How was it? Gerd also 
brought with him some roll-ends of FAX 
paper to dispense to the masses. 

Rod Humphreys says we have $1K+, “All 
the money we need & everything is fine!". As 
Editor, Rod is doing one more newsletter and 
that's it. You may send your articles to Rod 
via Frog Hollow BBS (604)469-0264. 

Harry Slot of the HW-SIG brought in a 
universal power supply he'd crafted. It is 
difficult to capture the essence of a Harry Slot 
creation. First of all, it is mounted in a 
custom-made case - Harry has a metal 
workshop in his backyard. The back of the 
case is extensively heatsinked [heatsunk?]. 
The front of the case sports dual power 
meters as well as an LCD screen voltage 
readout. There are numerous ranges to 
choose from, both variable as well as fixed 
voltages. The impression created is that of 
overwhelming attention to detail. 

As 1000 librarian, Harry has been going 
through the tapes. There was a seven page 
handwritten list of titles passed around. He 
reports many missing. He is also greatly 
displeased with the "quality, or rather the lack 
of same" of the library. Rod H. suggested that 
folks restock the 1000 library from their own 
collections. 

At this point, the informal meeting broke 
through and various folks got into their 
personal interests. Guido had his Osborne. 
He is looking at setting up a BBS when he 
gets an IEEE-488 bus controlled hard disk. 


-by your HUMBLE scribe 


I got to the meeting late, 


cause Glenn Read A 


I got to talking. When we arrived at 19:55, Gerd 
opened the meeting. There were 12 stalwarts 
present. Gerd started off with the Great Wes Yale 
auction. This went on throughout the meeting. Wes 
had a bunch of 20680 stuff to be disposed of & 


various homes for these items were found, 


with 


only a little haggling & very few outright 


threats. 


The hardware SIG is going to have custody of 


the club ZX81 system. 


Rusty Townsend missed the Kent swap meet after 
all; the lure of Reno caught bis eye... 
There was some discussion over the fact that 


Rod Humphreys is stepping down as Editor. 


Rod is 


discouraged because there is a chronic lack of 
material to put into the newsletter. Some people 
seem to think that things will just go on even if 
they don't do anything. There was a rounbd of 
applause for Rod, who was absent. 

Marie mentioned that she has joined the TO club. 


They have a good 2068 library. 


Their newsletter, 


SincLink is supposed to be quite good. 
The auction was taken up in earnest. Wes came 


out of it $89 richer. 


No meeting until Sept. 


14. 


Sinclair QL - Alive l in Germany 


which 
last 


invitation, 
me during our 
attended the  Znd 
meeting on June 23rd 
Germany on my recent 
trip to that country. The show was 
held in an old castle and was well 
attended. I was welcomed as an invited 
guest by Mr. Detlev Lazar, meeting 
organizer and QL magazine 
publisher/editor, and his staff. The 
meeting was well set up in five areas: 
reception (admission charge collection 
and club magazine sales); vendor tables 
(12 vendors, soft- and hardware items); 
club tables (10 different demo setups); 
lecture room; and bar. "QUASAR", the 
club magazine of the Sinclair QL User 
Group e.V. (Germany), is published 
quarterly, the most recent issue being 
#23, dated June 20,1990. It contains 50 
pages average, is bound in a soft 
cardboard cover and contains 
editorials, articles, hard- and 
software reviews, discussions of club 
interests, reader dialogues, and a 
small ad section. It is easy 
and well laid out. The magazine is 
published in German and copyright 
protected. Interested readers please 
contact: 

SINCLAIR QL USER GROUP e.V. 

Sophienstr. 9 

4040 Neuss 1 

West Germany 


Harvey's 
ed on to 
club meeting, I 
International QL 
in Bedburg Castle, 


to read. 


Some News highlights from the 2 most 
recent issues: 

-Brand new QL's c/u Psion software 
package available for £65 from the 
British firm EEC (phone 44 753 8888560) 
-Production of QL microdrive cartridges 
has ceased 


-Neu QL ROM available - it is caiied 
"MINERVA' 
I met two  gentiemen from Miracle 


Systems who were selling their wares at 
the meeting and purchased a parallel 
printer interface from them for my QL. 
The European serial ports require a 
never-seen-here in-line 6 pin plug with 
Side clip hook for retention. I was 
provided with the pin-out for a DB 9 
connector and was therefore able to 


adapt the interface to DB 9. My FUJITSU 
printer in Epson mode failed to 
respond, my ADMATE thermal printer 
works, but refuses to respond to any 
control codes. I also tried to finda 
“SCHOEN QL replacement keyboard, with 
real keys, which had been made in 
Germany but found that they are no 
longer available. There is an ad for a 
secondhand unit in the latest QUASAR - 
I did not make an enquiry. 
S page article in QUASAR No. 22 on 
building your own A/D converter which 
connects to the QL rom port. If there 
is enough interest in this project from 
VSUG members, I'll check with the 
publisher on their policy re. 
translating it into English. 


“SHOE 


YEAU THESE OLDACME 295 
WILL TO THIS... JUS LIKE THEM 
1 JBM 4026 AND APPLE I's... 


Von 


WITH A FORD 299. 


There is a. 


Playing with Electricity 


-June 18/90 
-Harvey Taylor 


I have been wondering about writing an article about online 
mannerisms which might puzzle the beginner. With Rod only doing one 
more issue, it would seem that if I am going to do it, Now is the time. 
As the computing community moves toward a WorldNet, a cyberspace type 
of construct in which any computer can tap into world wide data networks, 
(probably via an extended ISDN), there will be changes in the sorts of 
data presented to the user. Meanwhile we have primarily a 7 bit character 
(0-128 ascii) text network. New users carry various fears into their 
interactions with these systems; fear of wrecking the machine, of damaging 
the network, fear of looking dumb. Probably the best advice is that 
on the outside of the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy ie. Don't Panic. 
One of the characteristics of communicating online is that you don't 
have any independent method of determining the other person's emotional 
state. All you have to Ho by is the words on your screen k sometimes 
words are ambiguous or in some way unintentionally inflammatory. It is 
very easy to &et into quite heated arguments, called flame wars, as a 
result of this. 
One method which the online community has generated to deal with 
this situation is the smiley face. :-) This is supposed to represent an 
emotional state via two eyes, a nose k a big smile turned sideways. 
When somebody says something potentially cutting which is meant in a 
humorous manner, the intent can be tempered with a smiley face. 
However people being people, a few other variants have been generated. 


>=) Humor - this is the one that started it all GA 
:3 Ear to ear grin l 

(: Same, but for people that are backwards 
SI Mustache 

GEN Smiling robot 

8) Frog 

>:-) Devilish smile 

(7) Wearing shades 

2-) )-: Masking theatrical comments 

:«) For tbose with hairy lips 

S Che ‘For those with beards too 

TS. Not funny 

”-) Wink 


There are alot more £ you can find files full of them online. Another 
idiosyncrasy which throws beginners is the penchant of modemmers to use 
acronyms. The only reason I can see for these is that a lot of computer 
users are poor typists. ;-) 


TOGOYC - the out group of your choice  TTUI. - talk to you later 

HHOS ~ HA HA ONLY SERIOUS CUL - see you later 

LOL - laughing out load WRT - with regard to 

ROTF - rolling on the floor IMO - in my opinion 

b4 - before IMHO — in my humble opinion 

CU 18tr  - see you later IMNSHO - in my not so humble opinion 

MORF - Male or Female? TINAR - this is not a review [Bix] 
TTFN - tata for now TANSTAAFL - there ain't no such thing as a free lunch 
OIC ~ Oh, I see MCIBTYC - my computer is better than your computer 
rehi — hello again 


From Timex to IBM: The confessions of a User. 
orc e Guido Vieira 


Yes, it's true. I've got an IBM. My own IBM. There 
are now eleven computers in our household. Four 
Timex/Sinclair 2068s (only one works), three Apple IIs 
(only two of work), an Osborne I (the first portable 
computer ever made, running on operationg system 
many times better than MSDOS called CP/M), a Radio 
Shack MC-10 ( A small color computer, it's only virtue 
being that it has an RS-232 interface), and two IBM AT 
Clones. Both have 1 meg of RAM. Both have two disk 
drives: a 5.25"and a 3.5", both high density, on one, and 
a 3.5 normal density on the other. Both run at around 
12mhz. The catch is that one cost over $1200, and the 
other just under $300. 

Ok, ok. I'll admit that the one my father purchased 
has a VGA card and monitor (for all those uninitiated 
into the MSDOS world, that means graphics (in this 
case) of about 800 x 600 by 256 colors, enabling you to 
display gorgeous girls or guys (depending on your 
preference) or fancy cars in full photographic quality. 
Note:That's actaully the only thing that impresses me 
on an IBM system. The ability to display all of those... 
ahem...pictures that I occasionaly run accross.), and a 40 
meg hard drive. Oh yes, a power supply that works too. 
But that's it. For the price I paid, I even got a mouse. 
And, of course, as John Brohman recently pointed out 
in a message to me on the Frog Hollow BBS, if I "get all 
of my softwear through the usual channels like a good 
. T/S user, then [ I'll ] end up paying only for the 
hardware". I won't say any more, since this is going 
into print... 

 Anyhow, many of you might be wondering exactly 
why I am telling you all of this. So, I've got an IBM. 
I'm a turncoat. I've gone and done the unspeakable. 
I've finally broken down, in the face of new and 
ultimately more expensive (notice I don't say better) 
technology, and gone to a (don't say it!) 16 bit machine 
(ARRRGH! I told you not to say it). But, let's face it, I 
have, do, and always will, hate (with a passion) IBM 
related computers and products. I have always despised 
their hack and slash approach to things, and certainly 
never appreciated a machine that was character based 
(the Osborne was, but it ran CP/M, and this has many, 
many, philisophical implications which I won't get 
into right now. (altough I might refer you to a text 
called "Zen and the Art of CP/M BIOS Calls")). What 
I'm trying to say is......what I mean is..... I'm not a 
turncoat....well I am....but I'm not..the darn things are 
cheap! ...well read this and figure it out for yourself... 

....It all began on the Sinclair Meeting on May 11th. 
Some of you may notice that the 11th comes just before 
the 12th. A somewhat signifcant point in this case. 
Anyhow, I had brought my trusty (and infinatly wise) 
Osborne to the meeting, where it sat attracting some 
attention. I mentioned to Harvey Taylor that I was 
trying to get a BBS up (as I have been for the past four 


or five years!), and that I was looking at softwear and a 
hard drive interface for the machine. This drifted into 
a casual conversation about different computers. I 
expressed my fanatical devotion to the Macintosh. At 
one point, however Harvey said something like "but 
then, you could always break down and get the 
unmentionable...". I laughed. He meant an IBM, and I 
had this picture of me at an IBM keyboard. I laughed at 
the unthinkable. 

On May 12th I found myself at the swap meet. This 
was a huge skating rink filled with computer vendors 


and the products they wanted to get rid of. I was happy ` 


that day, because I had a line on a Kaypro II (which I 
was going to have a look at and hopefully buy), but I 
thought that I'd just drop by and have a look at the 
swap anyway. 

‘Much to my disappointment, it was all IBM with an 
itzy bit of Macintosh splattered in places. I was 
annoyed. No CP/M stuff. Then I noticed the prices. Oh 
the prices! My Timx/Sinclair instincts kicked in (ie: 
when you see a good deal grab it, regardless of how 
much junk you have in the house). I had brought with 
me $200 for the Kaypro II, but asked myself one 


question: Could I, with only $200, actually put together ` 


a complete IBM system? I looked around. Serial Cards 
were going for $1. 360k disk drives were going for $4. 
Cases were being sold at $25. Keyboards for $6. My 
mind went into overdrive ( I'm sure lucky I took that 
Calculus course this term....). I figured that with a little 
wheeling and dealing, not only could I put together an 
IBM system, but I could make it a 80286 based machine 
as well and with this information, my brain reeled. I 
spent the first hour appraising, and seeing if I could 
actually put a cheap machine together. By the time I 
was done, half of the things I had looked at, were 
already gone, so I quickly scrambled to get my 
components. 


I first got the mother board. Since everything was 
being sold in "as in" condition there was no guarantee 
that anything would work. The solution: Buy in large 
quantites. The MB was $50 plus $15 for a second, 
identical board, so I could trouble shoot it. $25 for the 
casing, which had a 5 1/4 1.2 Meg disk drive attached to 
it. What a deal! I couldn't pass this one up. Ram: 512K 
for $30 (I later bought 1 meg for $50 from another 
place). The video and drive controlers I bought new 
(but at dirt cheap prices anyways), as I figured that this 
would aid in trouble shooting. I also couldn't pass up 
the offer to get a 1200 baud modem. $10. 


And so there I was. I had a whole system in spare 


parts, blown slightly under $250 bucks into it, and I had 
no idea whether it would work. But I was happy. My 
mother wasn't too happy, and thought I had wasted 
my money (until the screen lit up, and then she was 
happy, and my dad was (I could tell), somewhat 
envious because my machine not only clocked nearly 
as fast has his (he's going to read this article, and I love 
to rub things in), but I also got the fun of opening it up 


cont'd on page 12 


PLAYING WITH ELECTRICITY 
—by Harvey Taylor 
References 
The CRT Controller Handbook — Gerry Kane 
The TeleVision Engineering Handbook — K.B. Benson 
DI ACK Grounded #43 
PC Magazine, May 31/88 
PC Hagazine, May 16/89 
Byte, Sept/88 
Byte, Feb/88 
Computer Buyers Guide & Handbook, Aug/Sept/88 
VPCUS Newsletter, April/88 
Computer Shopper, July/87 
Computer Shopper, Feb/88 
Amazing, Oct/S8 
PC Horld, Dec/88 
Hodern Electronics, Jan/9@ 
PC Magazine, April/90 
PC Magazine, May/99 
PC Horld, May/99 


HultiSync Honitors 

In the last while I have been 
HultiSync monitor for my Ami. I decided to go for 
a multisync in hopes that I will be able to use 
it with any future systems I may own. The table 
below has a lot of holes, but I thought you might 
find it of use if you are doing something 
similar. 

I'm going to plead laziness in defining all 
the categories of the table. Not everyone shops 
by specs. The references will get you started if 
you want to know what these numbers mean. For a 
quick read, two important ones are bandmidth (the 
larger the better) and dot pitch (the smaller the 
better). You should try to get a look at any 
prospective monitor being used on a system 
similar to yours. 


shopping for a 


——————————————————— (S EOI 
—————— - ———————— —— ————— rara rire ———— ————————— ————————————————————— —————————— 
ro 


Manufacturer Model Type Size Resolution Dot Vert Freq Hor Freq Bandwidth T/S Base OTHER List Cost Discount 
Pitch (Hz) (KHz) (MHz) 

CEM 1958 MSYNC 14) 1024X 768 .31 58-88 5-34 X Yes US#799 
MITSUBISHI - D SCAN AUMIZBIA — MSYNC 14H/13 V BA X GOB A 15.7 - 3% 

ALM 1371A MSYNC 13 Baa Y 568 45-75 35 M. OPTIONAL US$ 983 

HL6585TK — MSYNC 18/19V — 1804 X 768.3 38-64 

HN3985ADK RK 20H/19.V — 800 X 688.31 15.7 - 35 

HASI@STK — MSYNC 20H/19V — 1024 X 768 A 38 - 64 

FA3415 MSYNC 1824 X 768 .28 US$ 1815 
TATUNG CM 1495 OMNISCAN 14 BBa X6B A €S-73 15-5 B YES US$ B75 
NEC MSYNC 2 MSYNC 13 808 X 568 .3 50-68 157-355 X3 OPTIONAL (Rep by 3D) US$ 888 

MSYNC 3D — MSYNC 14 1824 X 768.28 58-9% 15.5- 38 45 US$ 1849 

MSYNC 4D NSYNC 15 

MSYNC SD — MSYNC n 

MSYNC PLUS MSYNC 15 960 17208 .31 56-88 218-45 3/55 YE US$ 1483 

MSYNC XL — MSYNC A 1824 X 768.31 56-88  21.8- 99 65 YES US$ 3208 
SONY CPD1382 — MSYMC 13 900X508 .2b 580-1890 15.7- 35 25 OPTIONAL US$ 988 — US$ 707 
PRINCETON ULTRASYNC MSYNC 12 B0 X6 .28 45-18 15-355 B. YES US$ 858 
THOMPSON 4375M MSYNC 13 BOB X 568 45-75 35 3 YES US$ 988 
MICROVITEC 1819/SP AUTISYM 2 1024 Y 588 .31 48-18 31.5 A8 US$ 2288 

1819/LP  AUTOSYNC 28 1824 X 1824.31 48-188 31.5 48 YES US$ 2488 
CONRAC 7258 MSYNC 19 1824 X 688 48-58 3 48 US$ 3838 
ELECTROHOME ECH 1318 MSYNC 13 728 X 548 47-85 AA 3 US$ 1208 

ECM 1312. MSYNC 13 728 X 348 47-85 A A LONG PERS US$ 1200 

ECM 1918 — MSYNC 19 1824 X 512 47-85 3 3 OPTIONAL LONG PERS US$ 2888 
LOGITECH TE 5155. AUTOSYNC 13 BOB X 568 45-88 3 A8 YES US$ 728 
NANAD DOS, FLEXSCAN 13 820 X 620 .28 50-88 3 3 YES US$ 928 

9868S FLEYSCAN 13 1824 X 768 .28 50-88 YES US$ 1859 

9878S FLEXSCAN — 16 1824 X 768 .28 58-88 20-50 
TAXAN 778 FLUS — MULTIVISIONI4 648 X 488 30-30 3 3 OPTIONAL US$ 628 
SAMSUMG CN 4551 — MSYKC 14 728 X 488.31 YES US$ 429 
SEIKO CH-1448  MSYNC 14 1824 X 768 .25 YES US$ B99 
RELISYS RESISS  MSYNC BBO X 688 A YES US$ 799 
PANASONIC C151 PANASYNC BOB X 688 .28 YES US$ 899 
LEADING TECHNOLOGY — 14324 MSYNC 1024 X 768 A YES US$ 495 
ANDEK AM/738 SMARTSCAN 3l YES US$ B35 


———————————————— 


1824 X 768 . 


The 25/T3S Serial Lin LO dissisemble Mel programs into text 
Files for rewritting on the DC, 
Bu i. Lee - Hini desktop publishing for writing 
article for the club newletter. Send 
There sre mang advantages in asddinz A COPY, LLIST and LPRINT contents to PC 
serial port to a ZZXSl-TS1880. It slisuwe ror editing and for inserting text 
tne Computer to use other devices which - Transfer Z24-TS BASIC programs to the 
bave a serial port, | Such az Odes PC Where it can be edited to run. 
Spron programmers, serial printer ete. 
Hid since computers: haue serial ports, We'll also look st how to program the 
it must also be possible to connect two Serial port and tru to write our oun 
ZX/T&8 together, each thinking the other "sort of" 1208+ band terminal program. 
WAS a modem. OF connect a ZX/T5 te a GL And we'll even change some of the ROM 
an Hpple of an Amiga, How about acing routines, 
mainztream and connecting it ta a 
EE UN E "udo c or tao z should stress a warning at this time 
ZOMHZ | hit nat , beginner’ s Projec ct s 


BN Ge ugh there ceemz He 
AITACTUFErs are not 


The trick is to nou which fit 
connect, e are different type 
Serial ports, R3422, Rides, R3d4a 
name a few, but the ones that we us 
see in the consumer market is the R5232, 
And even Within this group, zome Hy and What 
nanufacturers have chosen their oun minimize ern"o 
types o£ connectors which creates transmission 


LL D ka 


LU k in 
Un 
i 
St 


Hith that in mind, TOU some theory. 
deet? It if used to 
mm aata cable 


ed by electrical noise 


a La, om 


ke EE 


d 
^^ mmm me 


different pir out arrangements. To beer sid cable cass it nce, This is 
some sort of standard, our project will sccomplished bu using a wider voltage 
be to link the ZX-TS to a PC compatible sing, A logic high is -3 to Se units 
Coin E uter a d r 1 i i ea l mg i C i Ghi = +3 T (e +i un i tz z 

The requirements for the PC if that it 
must haue a R3232 serial port and S There are several important key points 


communications program. If you're Lo nremembsr:; 
locking for software, the Vancouver deg Ee us t bouem di 
Public Library down on Burrard and the | s pp Le M Ce Sg 
Les DE A pa iare 4 = EA 4 £ e 8 AU uc. o ki A Sng tas 
ees tas EE . CE, data communications equipment. 

your formatted S 174" 36GK or 1. dAn ce, riie 
diskettes and det copies af hat. gott 


need, You might also want to pick up GT DCE 


gard Proccezczson Program and a program ' originate on Connect directiu 
alled "Pseudosam Cross Assembler sar receive digital to iens line 


and a5. informatian 
The requirements for the ZZX-T32 if that pe entre 

it Will be running the communications idea dizpiz 

program ZIX-Termese@ and using the termi 

Hectridge TS52859 or equivalent, E3232 zerial in 

serial port. Other serial porte can also 

ke use Such as the Memotech and the 


Hades 
multi Pplexerz 


"rn vie rg er ate er ate ane afe afe mp fr uu 


Pute-Easck, but all of the examples will DEZSP i; DB2SS 
be given for the Hestridge. In additon Gun 2, ( Pin 3, 
WE will be writing some o£ our oun -2u to -15u i -2Y to -154 
routines and adding in a memoru upgrade, t 
Hhat will this allow us to do? 
- store ZX-T35 programs from cassettes to 2. The DCE serial port is the exact 


floppies Signal opposites of the DTE serial port, 


1 ='£ 
— Save ZASTS ramdisk contents to even though each pin on the DCE 
Flappies, connectonr uses the same names as those 
- lise the PC ta call ZX BRS, taking on the DTE. This allows the DCE 
advantage o£ the higher baud rates and cennector to be connected directly te 
allowing more than one program to be the DTE, Pin for pin. 
donup loaded. Transfer programs ouer Ze The DTE uses a 25 pin plug connector 
to the ZA;/T2 later, called the DB2SP while the DCE uses a 25 
- Hrite bid relocated Z4/TS machine code pin socket connector called the DË, 
erograns through the PC. Or use HOT-I 9 


d, Of the 25 pins, below if a list 
all af the signal lines reauired to ` 
connect DTE to BCE. The other pins 
either unassign or not used in 
micracamputer applicationz. These pins 
are numbered on the connectors, 


This Chart would be an example ar 
cannecting an auto answer modem YO E] 


computer, Pin 22 is not required if thc 
modem if not auto answer, The directions 
of the signals is also Shown. 

to to 
PIH DTE DCE DESCRIPTION SYHEGL 
i frame ground FG 
= --—» transmitted data HE 
3 -= received data RE 
d ——; request to send RTS 
= L — clear ta send CTS 
5 Zon data set. ready DSR 
# signal ground SG 
= -— data carrier detect DID 
ze ——; data terminal reads DTE 
zz d ring indicator RI 


= 1 Gd of identifuirn 
£ ta the voltages an 
Pins 2 and 3 wit t to around an 

pin £y. DIE will Show SU ta 154 an pin 2 
kihile DCE Wili show it on pin 3. 


a 


5. A more accura 
he group i 


ZS ct 


Connecting DTE to DTE means that the 
ble Hill have to direct the Signals 
fm one connector ta the proper points 
he other connector. Below would be 
gr of sone ane a BA ao a 


m zi 4^ “> n “ 
CH T 


wee 
Lab ct 


ct ln mu Ob cn 


TQ TO SND 


FIH SYHEOL DTE DTE PIN  2'YHEDOL 

1 FG nu F6 o — 
= HS -- 3 RD 

= RD dn 2 TO 

4 ETS -— = CTS 

9 CIS -— 4 ETI 

6.2 DSR, GOD  c— Si DTE 

z SIE 7 SIE 

SM DTR din 6,3 DSR,DCD 


lan make this project Simpler bu 
sing ang OF the “handshaking 

Kë. Our serial port will be hard 
red inte thinkins that the other port 
iye rezdy. The only = signals thz 
Will required then iz pin 7 for 
Und. pin z for transmitting data an 
3 for receiving data. 


-< D 
Mm gwat su 
z 
m go 
LLLI yo 
e M LA + E 


S it fr a pwi 1 


teh. 


A dd " 


D 
ki + 
zi a 
m 


= first order of bitrine 
an a T220560 or equivalen 


Serial port. Rather than converting a 
Berfectiu good modem, there were mana 
Surplus boards available zt one time 
that uou might want to track down. Jim 
Horne had quite a few the laft time I 
Spoke with him. Wilf Righter has 
designed an excellent eauivalent circuit 
Hhich Would ice a great project. tHint 


for the hardware group.) 


c Westridge T35g858 modem asctuall: 

E bre af tum parts. It contains a 
serial eg which formats the £ bit wide 
data ta gem through a single stream and 
a modem Chip which converts this ztream 
into tanes which can travel through tire 
telephone lines. 


"TL 
Oe 
Tic 


* a 


2 convert the T328058 into a serial 
part, We tap the required signals from 
the 3251 serial Chip and feed them to 
level translating chips Which changes 
them ta RS232 levels. Using the neu 
Manazse IC helps simplify the 
Dens tric cons It contains tio output 
ransmitters and two input receivers 
With its awn built in voltage converter. 
The completed port would be DTE because 
of the directions of the handshaking 
Signals if they were uted. 


We can alsa program the HC14569 
counter ta allow the port to operat. 
cg, san, 128¢, 2480 or 4386 baud. Th 
topic Wil] be covered in the next 
installment but here's a brief 


explaination to allow you to experiment. 
Both ZA-Terms+e@ and Mini Xmod 
automatically sets the serial chip’s 
mode word to 73, This establishes the 
serial protocal to 3 data bits, l stor 
bit With no parity and its internal 
“divide by clock" to 64. Changing the 
dip switch setting for the MCIJS69 will 
allow the port to operate at 2G8 or sae 
baud. 


mode 
wore (Dec) 


m 


baud 
rate 


dip 
switch (Bini 


TT TIT GRA argu 
unnreiisbhlce 
ro lileie2sga sog 
SS Gal TET aa KSC 
SE GGETTIBIB . Pave 
ra paparia icu 
73 aellueiass so 
yo GeeTi aig Saü 


But if We use the mode word F3, this 
Still allows the same format but sets 
its internal “divide bu clack" to 18. 


Cnengind the dip switch setting, the 
port can now operate at 3898, 12800, 2466 
or^ dau baud. 

HL S6GG baud we run into difficulty as 
errors appear in the exchange. Hore 
experiments will be needed in this ares. 
Here we use the mode word of 77 whith 
Sets its internal “divide by clock" to 
a, 


a general rule, the Z-T mist be 
ifi thé fast mode in order to operate 
without error st baud rates higher thar 
cdd. We’l] look into this Situation more 
closely ifi a Future article. 
Unfortunately the modem Circuitry itrelr 

355 been designed to operate oniy at 388 
baud, le“ ll report if ue can zomehou 
ifiprave an this. 


There if a Wiring error on some GF 
these boards. ?4Ccpa Pin li, zhould be 
connected to MOTI4412 pin 12 while PCS 

pin ic, should be connected to S251 Sin 
23, I'ue come across a Couple of poards 
Where These connections are reverced 
Which prevents the modem circuitry fran 
Working properly, 


If you're using the serial port for 
other applications which might require 


NCC 


D li 
HANDSRAKING 
LINES 
CUT TRACE TO 
PIN "m 22 16V 
ADD JUMPERS 


8 POSITION pip 
SWITCH 


1 Zu Da KI 


DC Dt 


1 of the handshaking lines, another 
woe ID wil] be required, Instead C 
na the tuo Jumpers the four 
haking Signals From the 5251 will 
oe brought out to the connector 
rez will still have to be Citi. Fit 
PTR and pin 23, RTS which are 
Puts wil] each be connected to a 
Pant er Hhile Pin z2, DSR and gin 
a, CTS HE are inputs wil] each be 
ectec a receiver, Refer to the 
sboue DTE tò DCE or DTE to DTE charts 
for correct pin out and cable 
arrangements, zee the article in the 
Janes issue o£ ZA-Arpeal for additional 
informatii. It originally sppeared in 


the iacu: une issue of Sincus News. 


z in the article, a switch can ) be 
AA ye to allou the T520580 t 
both az a port or af a modem. dus 
remember to unplua it "from the pi 
line When uou are uzind it as 
since the modem cinrcuitries ar 
active, 

I haven’t yet kad the opportunitu to 
est a TS2853 with the serial port, But 
too Should operate quite comfortebiu 
488 baud and should operate a i288 
aud modem With no problems at ali 
joula" if alwaus a big word. 


ki 
Te 
me bi 


al 

sa, Ld 
—— 

“W. fwè. ' 
keet 


ach: 
"AG "xc 


ctam ft 
M et nt: 


"m 


Next. time, we'll lock at Prag amin: na. 


DTE CONNECTING CABLE DCE 


TS oer CONNECT 


0625s 


CONNECTING CABLE. HIE 


pB25S pB25.S € one] 


SERIAL PRINTER 


CUT TRACES TO ISSOLATE 
PINS 3,8,5 6, ti 12, 13, 14 
AND MAKE THESE New 
CONNECTIONS. 


RECONNECT PI 
PI 


Mci4569 


ti 


THATS THE PROMISE OF CLIVE SINCLAIR 
AND HIS HYPER-RISC' PROCESSOR 


PARALLELISM FOR ALL? 


LIVE SINCLAIR IS AT IT 
again. The indefatigable Sir 
Clive now says he is going to “bring 
parallel computing within reach of ev- 
eryone” with a radical processor chip 
from Sinclair Research Ltd. of London. 

Sir Clive says the design objectives 
include processing 200 million instruc- 
tions per second, and emulation of any 
standard processor—including those 
from Intel Corp. and Motorola Inc. 

“There are single-processor com- 
puters and there are parallel arrays,” 
he says. “Our new chip is designed 
to do both.” He classifies it as a 
"hyper-RISC" processor. A feature is 
"Transputer-like" communications 
ports that will allow any number of 
the chips to run in parallel. 

“It’s a full custom chip, not a gate 
array, with a lot of new technology. 
It has custom RAM and custom 
ROM, and both are far faster than 
anything that has been done be- 
fore," says Sir Clive. 

“Its basically a 32-bit chip," he ex- 
plains. "We have put a lot of work into 
making fast adders and other process- 
ing elements, and especially on-chip 
RAM: We designed it to have a 3-to-4- 
ns access time. The chip handles its 


own memory management," Sir Clive 
says, "and has on-chip video drive and 
input-output circuits, so it's truly a one- 
chip solution." 

Sir Clive says that "various tricks" 
allow efficient use of external RAM: "It 
accesses external memory in page 
mode. That way it can address multiple 
banks of memory using just 32 pins 
and there is no limit on the amount of 
memory it can handle," he states. 

The technique also provides very 
fast access to program instructions, Sir 
Clive says. "We can pull off instructions 
very, very fast because they are only 8 
bits long and we can queue them on 
the chip. Also on the chip we have a 
very-high-speed ROM for subroutines 
that can store macros." This on-chip 
ROM code is what will give its emula- 
tion capability, Sir Clive says—the chip 
could be set up to use the same in- 
struction code as industry-standard 
CPUs. "We will do with software what 
others do with hardware," he asserts. 

Other features used to increase 
speed, hold power down, and keep 
the chip within a 300-by-300-mils die 
area include the use of "stacked, bal- 
anced logic." The design uses logic 
swings of just 100 mV and claims an 


ELECTRONICS * JULY 1990 


and fiddling with it under the hood (not to say that dad 
didn't have fun. He put the initial system together, 
and I fell into my usual role of mad scientist's 
assistant. However I can't really complain. The thing 
works). Anyhow, next time (if there is a next time), I'll 
go into it little more about how you could possibly 
manage to do the same if you like, and just in time for 
the upcoming Pacific Coast Computer Swap in 
September. I'm planning to upgrade to a 386 with 80 


meg Hard Drive. And all for less than another $300. 


Smile. 


12 


equivalent switching speed of 100 ps, 
although that is achieved by stacking 
multiple instructions in ROM. 

"And on top of that we are using 
self-timing. It's self-clocking and it runs 
at its own speed. When it talks to the 
outside world it's clocked, but internal- 
ly it runs as fast as it can. And that is a 
considerable advantage. Normally you 
design for the slowest possible gate so 
everything else runs a lot slower than it 
could do." 

Key technology for the device is a 
1.0-um version of the collector diffu- 
sion isolation (CDI) low-power bipolar 
process developed at the Manchester, 
UK, laboratories of Plessey Semicon- 
ductors—work that was started by Fer- 
ranti Electronic Components Ltd. be- 
fore its 1987 merger with Plessey. 

“We could not make this chip with 
CMOS because the charge and dis- 
charge times are too high to get the 
speed and the power consumption 
would be far higher than the bipolar 
device,” says Sir Clive. “So this really 
does have a huge advantage over. 
CMOS. Plus, of course, there are far 
fewer mask layers in the process— 
the minimum is five for CDI but of 
course there are several metal layers 
so its around nine—still very low 
compared with modern CMOS, per- 
haps half the number.” 

No introduction date has been set 
because the chip, now in first silicon, 
must go through a few more silicon it- 
erations. However, Sir Clive says he in- 
tends to offer the design for licensing 
and the device for general sale. What 
Sinclair Research intends to use it for is 
a closely guarded secret—but the hints 
are that it is a mass-market personal 
computer application. D 


A 


LATITUDE and LONGITUDE in B.Z. 


l 


From: M.Kendall 


Did you know that every B.C. Hydro power pole bears its 
longitude and latitude? On every pole there is a small metal 
plate, located at eye level, containing a series of numbers in 
two lines. The one behind our house in Vancouver reads as 
follows: 

4311 4913 0008 

201 534 
To decode the plate: 

The first four numbers tell us the longitude. Since all 
parts of B.C. have longitude greater than 110 degrees west of 
Greenwich, the "i" has been dropped. So 2311 means a longitude 
of 123 degrees, 11 minutes. The second set of numbers gives us 
the latitude which is 49 degrees, 13 minutes. The third set of 
numbers in the fiirst line refer to the B.C. Hydro location map 
and can be ignored. 


If you want precise measurements for astronomical or 
other purposes such as surveying you turn to the second line of 
numbers. These are correction values, and here, once again, a 
digit "O" has been dropped , this time from the end of each set. 
The pole on our lane is 2010 feet west and 5340 feet north of 
the latitude and longitude described in the first line. 


Ap one second of longitude is equal to 66.6 feet, and 
one second of latitude is equal to 101.3 feet, to obtain the 
precise position to the nearest second of arc, divide the 
appropriate sets of numbers by those amounts. 


le. 2010/66.6 and 340/101 2 
This gives the exact position of the B.C. Hydro pole on 
our lane as: Longitude 123 degrees, 11 mins., 30.18 secs. 
Latitude 49 degrees, 13 mins., 52.71 secs. 
Reprinted in the Province, Sunday Magazine, Sept.28/80 


from NOVA, the newsletter of the Vancouver Centre of the Royal 
Astronomical Society. 


13 


FROM YOUR VICE-PREZ. 


Our past news-letters have contained 
some uncomplimentary remarks about 
the quality of service provided by 
our postal service. 
Now I'd like to say that they can 
get it together once in a while. 
The March news-letter was posted at 
our local post office on Friday, 
March 2 at 5 p.m. 
Many of our members in the Lower 
Mainland received it on the 
following Monday! It was also 
delivered on that Monday to a member 
in Parksville ( that's a 3-hour 
drive and a 2-hour ferry ride from 
here). 
You can't expect to get it done much 
better than that. 
I'd like to hear from some of our 
more distant members as to when they 
got their copy deliverd. 


The March news-letter made reference happily browsed at the Swap Meet 


to an article I wrote on a computer 
fair to be held in Kent, Wash., USA. 
Unfortunately it didn't get printed 
as our Editor managed to lose it. 

I did spread the details around to 
those who attended our March 
meeting. For those who might like 
to attend upcoming ones there, 
here's the scoop. 

AM Computer Swap Meet 

Kent Commons(a community hall) 

525 4th Avenue North 

Kent, Washington. 

24-hour Info (206)874-8711 

9 am to 5pm again on 

June 2, Sept 8, & Dec 8. 

I drove down with my wife on March 
17 to visit the last one, left her 
for several hours at South Center 
Mall while I carried on to Kent and 


for some time. Saw absolutely 
nothing in the Timex or Sinclair 
line but did pick up several items 
of Apple and IBM-compatible 
software at about 5% of their 
Original price for myself and some 
other misguided friends. 

Upon my return to South Center, I 
found my wife hadn't bankrupted me, 
so we had supper there and then 
wended our way to the Border and the 
Customs who allowed my purchases to 
come in duty-free but nailed my wife 
for $15 on the $80-worth of stuff 
she declared. 

All in all it was a good day. 

Maybe I'11 see you at the next one. 


Asa special witness to 
The President's War on DOS Committee, 
Bill the Cat reveals his sordid past 


never wanted to hurt 


e "At first, I just did it on weekends, 
with my friends, you know? We 


anyone. The 


girls loved it. We'd all sit around 
the computer and do a little DOS. It 
was just a kick. At least that's what 
we thought. Then it got worse. 


It got so I'd have to do some DOS during the weekdays. After a while I 
couldn't even wake up in the morning without having that crave to go 
do DOS. Then it started affecting my job. I would just have to do it 
during my break. Maybe a Mode command or two. I eventually started 
doing DOS just to get through the day. Of course, it screwed up my 
mind so much that I couldn't even function as a normal cat. DOS got 


me fired from my job. 


I'm lucky today. I've overcome my DOS problem. It wasn't easy. If 
you're smart, just don't start. Remember, if a weirdo in a blue suit offers 


you some DOS, just say no." 


MSDOS... 
Just Say No! 


14 


The ZE erizi Link 
lisind the rors ARIZERNIEF 
bu ii, Lee 

There comes a time when ance Raving 
learned the basics of Machine langua ade 
Programming, to pursue the quest to write 
the ultimate program. For that noble 
Efidtavour, we need to eauip ourselves 


, t 
with the proper tonis. 


Fon may years, "BHrtic Enp A atid 
"HoGt-Z" were knon af the utilites ta LISE 
fon kit A Ti TE Pe oi po latrua ge E roe amit AC: 


Bot 4, uitilites 
and ditadvantadeocus, Both 
in memoru hich limits where 


the ZW TS, 
adua ATA YEO t= 
alia resides 


code could be stored. What if we had a 
ee which uonid not only allow us to ] 
write programs with the editing ease cf 
ae pea Hzsembler, but world alsa aiiouw 
us to generate code to anu part of usable 


memonrg like Hot-z, but without ari. GF i 
restrictions? The answer, the cros 
ATTEMblEF With the serial link. 


i. PC compatibie (with Serial port) 

£g. Word Proc cessor fascii text optioni 
3. ŠA Cross Assembier fíPseudosam Baz: 
4, Hodem program (atcii file send! 

De DEVIZ (uriak, Ramdas, optional! 
Bn. Tozu5ü8 serial port 
fe Hrtic Assembler 


Une source for a Zu cross sembler iz 
the Vancouver Public Library. "tee Se 
A Service Called “Pro-3ig", which it a 
collection of PC, fresware and shareware 
programs . The pete bee is Called l 

 Preudosam Cross Assembler ZOZ and 85." 
This if a shareware Program which means 
is a Small registration fee if 


The term “crass assembler’ if used ta 
dezcribe this utility because it uses The 
PC compatible computer which has a 38323. 
Such, 65565, ar Ge CPU, depending on 
whether it's a PC, XT, AT, PS/2 ETC, to 
generate code for the Z230 CPU, which the 
£xTS has. 


Let's begin with a demonstration. We're 


going to put together to short. programs 
“Tigan Hame'" will prints the name “Timex 
Sinclair loa on the screen and "ScPEERn 
inwerze" will Change Characters on the 
screen ta its inverse, Ta make things 


interesting, "To2i8QuS Name’ Mill Be 
located to address sgairp (Decimal) 
-reen Inverse’ to location 127630. Tre 


"at its = 
data for "Tan Hame'" will be located tc 
address 202526. (Choose different 1 5 


Titid: 


FOLLE 
Clumn: 
lime: 


Addresses if unu don't have 64K.) lite the 
Word processor eG produce this file Which 
WE Wil] call "trial.asm" It is written in 
the format required by Preudofam Sr. 


dE T21888 Name re 


$ Jr d E e, 


Set. Chr 2 
Hove ch. 


; countr. 
; Pointer. 
; Bet character. 

; Print it. 

; Update pointer. 

é 

z 


djnz prat PO it again until 
ret MESSY if finish.: 
;———-——4 Screen Inverse > =- 
20° 22758 


Find 

start of screen, 
Set. ras counter, 
aet col. ed 
Change £ £ 
normal 
Characters 

ta 

inverse ard 
inverze 
Characters 

to 

normal. 


Pata 


ld L, cd 
ld k, 32 
d à, ihi} 
dd à 123 


"WE x a ou 
D zi c. 


T s 
m s 
nt 
w^ 
De 
hu 
feo o "e o *w 6 e e ^w e ^e o ^o o NE "e o Ne o Se e e e No 


oo: 
. 


: Gra 49752 


KEEN 


pe 
à 


2:46 h'b3.h'ae, bi b2,h'aa,h'bd,h'8a8 
«db 56,46,51, 48, 49, 38,48,55, 4 

2b 29,28, 28 2a, ea 

s £d 


2 


Ye Word processor must be able, or 


D fhe option, ta BENEFALTE a pure Aatcii 
Tile. ANY additional code embeded : uli 


conruse the assembler, 


The Preudoasam version it different FROM 
MOST assemblers. Tt is based an the br Ui 


Sustem U'" assembler sumtax. Notice the 
USE Of lower Case letters, colons Which 
Follow after see and periods which 
precede pseudc-ops 

Fseudo-ops are instructions used ta 
inform the assembler. "Org «address; 
tells the assembler that the Folia d 
Code are to be written for thi £ starting 
iaddress “iS allows us ta ehe Case Where 


ja ag to Pee eee Our code. He cou iid even 


ist SS an the ksma Ee 


imlike the Artic ns embler. all number 
c Concidenred decimis unless specifi 
theruise and instructions are written. in 


CO Da 
a 


the traditional Zilog format. Hotice the 
A1 used to designate hex numbers and 
commas used in the instruction "jn 
nz,.clumm'. 

Arter this File if produced, assemble 
it With the cross assembler, Issue this 
command from DOS, 

assez trial.afm 
hich Will produce tuc neu Files. 
irial.l5t. and trial.ohj. 

Trial.lst contains the program listiny 
from triasl.asih with the assembled code 
and their addresses in their retpected 
columns, If anu errors were reported Ti 


3 
thc assembling, the assembler will alea 
mark its location in this file. 


Trial.obj; contains just the assembled 
hex Codes arranged in that if krnouti ac 
the "Intel Hex" format. Here's what it 
iooks like isaueezed into di columns. ił 


| 62 330D8BE142180CA7ED?231GFBC952 

| la8eaoDaPHOCADPD3ORISUSDO7ECOBOT72310r023 
el 

: Gds0loBB8AD2AF3C083 LX 

LCE EE EELER OG 
1E 

: ddco190u1C1C1Ca0DE 


This file is divided into blocks, Each 
contains “= foalioWwind information 
n this order, 


i. H colon which marks the beginning oF 


fach block. 

Z. A number which indicates how manu 
assembled “program” hex digits sre in 
the block, “OR means the end of the 
fil& if reached, 

3. The starting addrezt FON Where The 
code thould be stored. 

4. A "ag" hex digits. thot used.) 

5. Hesembled hex cadet in the block. 

5. The Checksum. This iz the thois 
complement ior if uou prefer, the 
neaative value! oF all the digits 
in the block added together. It iz 
used for detecting errors in the file 
transfer. 

The PC will use the modem program tc 
transfer this File over to the ZX-.T3 

t i^ 


"€ 
n 
A 


d will be 4380 baud, 3 data bits, mno 


d 


& 
Kata ga. the Se link. UTE bBrotocal 
po 


saritua, 2 stop bit and us ind the “RACIT 
send’ method. Fach character in the file 
if sept one at a time until the entire 
CO of the file is received, 

The ZXVTS will rewire a program whith 
Will accept and extract the necessary 
information from the file. tise the Artic 


Assembler to create “A3JBZ obj File 
loader" fhis program will run when the 
command “RAHD USR 15515." is issued. 


poke 


error 


16 


BAZ obj 


; This program will load nH8Gz'c 
; Ghy files from the PC to Ger 
; £X*61/TS1eee, 


| CP Sa 
ae: mZ fStrt ; 


call Gute 
cp e 
jr z exit 


Call 'abyte 


call gbyte 
id thi},a 
inc ki 

dinz poke 


call gbyte 
Jr Z fstrt 


1 d a. A Ag 
Call trans 
ld hl,errm 
Jr print 


ld b,84 
Call Gute 
dinz echek 
JP nz error 


id hl,dowunm 


"we o» De e "o a "ho o "o o "ro o "o o "o o "o o "o o "o o o o "on 


A 


Dep o oos Wee P n "o 2n e 


we s s Deg n n 


“ee Dee n n n" n 


Deg o Deg € tn n 


Des e fen a "o "on Poo fw n fon NW n 


File Loader 
h 


nu 


GO ta fast made. 


Clear BR. 

Clear 

Checkzum counter, 
Reset. 

the 

serial 

port. z 
Set mode, 83,.n,1, 

16x baud rate factr. 
Set command to start 


communication. 


Search For 
the beginning 
OF the block, 


Is this 
the end 
CF the file? 


Find # of hex digits 
to receive in block. 
Find 


the code. 


Load 
the block 
OF rode 
to memory. 


Continue only if the 
CHECKSUM is Correct? 


Discontinue 
send. 
Report 


final 
diditsz 
is Checksum correct? 


ecport dload cplete. 
Print. 

the 

RES face 

an the 

screen, 
co ta Sjok mode, 
Return to BASIC., 


doute call the: ; Get 
rica : 
rica ; feast. 
rica ; Significant 
rica > nibble. 
id d,a ; Save it, 
Call ghe ; Bet LS nibble. 
add a,d . Add Man to ian, 
ld d 3 A 2 Save hex e ute. 
add a,c , Update 
ld Ce > Checkzum. 
id a,d , Get hex bute. 
ret. 
tex Call recy ; Get ASCIT character. 
sub au L| if it is a ASC L hii. 3 
cp Ga ; convert it to 
rev £ ; its bës value. 
sub G7 ; If it if a ACIO iet. 
ret. ; cwert to hex val. 
recy in A, de ; Has 
bit l,a ; Character 
jr z recy o A arrived? 
in a,7a ; Get it. 
ret. 
trans push af ; SAVE Character. 
tstat in a, dé ; € 
bit G,a > it time 
rz ts tat ; toa send? 
POP a+ A Get the Charact `e 
out. Y Fe SE 2 Send ito 
ret. 
errm “< error detected »" 


domm “download completed" 
o_o ENB ——————-—-i 


This program also switches the zZX/T35 te 
the fast mode to operate at the hicher 
baud rates. Once the assembled P oS an if 
loaded or if an error is detected, E 
ZX/T85 is Switched back ta the slow m 
A message wil] be printed on the Screen 
to inform if the transfer was successful 
or not. Remember to set the serial port 
dip switches for 4288 baud. 


khat mau make this listing hard to 
Follow if that, 


i. Hex codes in the .obi file are ati 
made up of twa ascii Characters. The 
loader has to convert each pair o£ 
aSCii Characters back to its original 
hex value. 


and then added to the checksum. If the 
result is “89” (ignoring the carru}, 
then errors did not occur in the 
transfer. 


The program also intializes the Pa 
port and tracks the incomind and outan 


data. If there is interests on this 
topic, WE'lI cover it in a Future 
article, 


Now let's see if our demonstration 
program is really loaded into the Zx-+TS 


Run this BASIC program. Use the addresses 


that you've selected for the afsemkiy. 
you chosed different ones. 


18 rand usr S817 
15 print | | 
cu gosub ie 
3B rand usr 3275&£ 
dg gosub i88 
Fe goto 18 

lGg for ci to i 

138 next c 

128 return 


The name "Timex Sinclair 18989 will be 
printed onto each line on the screen as 
it switches between normal and inverse. 


What makes this sustem work so well is 
that most Word processors are der i GT Give 
for editing. Features like block MOVES, 
block saves and word searches provides a 
real creative environment. In addition, 
the obj loader can also be rewritten to 
reside in low or in high memory. This 
allows REM statements in the “BASIC are 
to store code. There are some excellent 
Machine code routines available for 
generating big REM statements. Look for 
them in the club library. 


What in store for the upcoming issues 
We'll find a say ta get Hot-z to 
difassemble code for PreudaSam Suz, turn 
the TS352048 
We mau even cover how to program the 
serial port itself. In the meantime Iii 
be on the look out for your ultimate 
programe 


17 


into a printer for the PC. an 


QL MENUE 
by 
Butch Weinberg 
PDS DOC 
Well, this time a little 
something on my "menue" 


program. I originally wrote 


SO 1 


it 
could go back and forth 


between a group of my programs 
without having to stop and type 
in individual LOAD commands. 


The 


"menue" program is written 


in QL SuperBASIC. The following 


LIST 
CUrr 
Publ 
prog 
are 


ing is the program 
ently found in our CATUG 
ic Domain Library (the 


rams included in the "menu" 
also available in the CATUG 


PDL). 


10 


19 
20 


30 
40 


45 
50 


60 
70 


80 
90 


140 
200 


220 
221 
222 


240 


260 


REMark menu for multiple 
programs 
PAPER 7: INK 4 
CLS: CSIZE 2,1: PRINT\ TO 
12; 'MENU' 
CSIZE 0,0 
CS12E: 0, 1: 
"Programs 
CSIZE 0,0 
PRINT\ TO 10; 
'1» Check Wrighter' 
PRINT TO 10;'2» Banner? 
PRINT TO 10; 
'3> Spin The Bottle' 
PRINT TO 10;'4» Listing (fo 
merging only)' 
PRINT TO 10;'5» Poster 
Maker' 
PRINT TO 10;'9» TO QUIT' 
PRINT #0O;'press the # of 
the one you want' 
inS-INKEYS (-1) 
in=in$ 
ON in GO TO 240, 260, 280, 
300; 320, 380. 220, 360 
CLS: CSIZE “2,1 + PRINT \\ 
TO 10; 'LOADING'NX TO 3; 
"CHECK WRIGHTER': 
LRUN flpl check: END IF 
CLS: CSIZE 2,1: PRINT\\ 
TO 10; 'LOADING'\\ TO 3; 
'BANNER': LRUN flpl banner 
END IF 


PRINT\ TO 10, 
on this cart.' 


pr 90 issue of the 
of the Chicago Area 


Reprinted from the Mar/A 
"Nite-Time News", the n/l 


T/S Users Group. 


18 


version of this program 
access two 
LOAD a total of 18 files. 


280 CLS: CSIZE 2,1: PRINT\\ 
TO 10; 'LOADING'\\ TO 3; 
"SPIN THE BOTTLE': 

LRUN flpl stb: END IF 

CLS: CSIZE 2,1: 

PRINT\\ TO 10; 'LOADING'NN 
TO 3; 'LISTING': 

LRUN flpl listing: END IF 
CES: CSIZE Zèl: 

PRINT\\ TO 10; 'LOADING'NN 
TO 3; 'POSTER MAKER': 

LRUN flpl poster maker: 
END IF 

PAPER 7: INK 2: Cho: 

CSIZE 2,1: PRINT\\\\ TO 4; 
'OK YOU ARE BACK IN BASIC' 
END IF 


300 


320 


360 


Modify this program by changing 
the names in the PRINT and LOAD 
statements to correspond 
your own programs. 


to 


have further modified a, 
to 


"screen pages” to 


DIRECTORY TO PRINTER 
PDS DOC 
by 
Butch Weinberg 


Well, as promised, here is some 
information on my "Dri dir" 
program in the CATUG Public 
Domain library. 


"Pri dir" isa simple utility 
written in QL SuperBASIC that 
allows you to send a directory 
of the contents your disks 
directly to your printer. It is 
for people like me who are lazy 
or who can't type and want to 
have printed directories of 
their magnetic storage. 


10 OPEN#3, serl 
20 DIR#3; flp2_ 
25 PRINT#3 


30 PRINT#0; 'MORE?' 


the 
go Area 


Reprinted from the Jan/Feb 90 issue of 
"Nite-Time News", the n/l of the Chica 


T/S Users Group. 


40 more$=INKEYS (-1) 

50 IF more$-'y' OR more$-'y' 
THEN GO TO 20 :ELSE 

60 PRINT#3, CHRS$(12);: 
CLOSE#3: STOP 


If you wish to make directories 
from one of your microdrives, 
then change the device name in 
‘Line 20" to "mdvl " or "mdv2 " 
as appropriate. Of course, you 
could add a PROcedure which 
allows for more convenient 
storage device selection. 


QL Australia - October 1989 


File-Saver Alarm 


With the QL's tendency to lock-up (a problem 
experienced by most owners sooner or later), it's a 
good idea to periodically save your work to disk or 
microdrive. That way, vou should lose only that 
work done since the last save. 


The simplest approach is for the operator to 
manually initiate the periodic saves - a simple task 
which can be easilv overlooked for long periods. 


The following SuperBASIC program - which can be 
included in your favourite BOOT program(s) - 
might be the answer to your problems. It initiates a 
series of alarms at pre-determined intervals. It 
doesn't need the current date or time to be set but it 
does, however, need Toolkit II to be running. | 


100 interval-20:REMark Minutes between alarms 

110 session time-5:REMark Session length in hrs 

120 times-(session time*60)y/interval: REMark 
Number of alarms 

130 dS=DATES 

140. h=dS(13 TO 14) 

150 m=dS(16 TO 17) 

160 FOR x=1 TO times 

170 m=m+interval 

180 IF m>60 THEN m=m-60:h=h+1 

190 IF h»24 THEN h=h-24 

200 ALARM h.m 

210 END FOR x 


Adapted from an article by Ed Ki ngsley in BosTUG 
Sep/Oct 1989 
19 


Programming Tips 
for the 2068 
by Hank Dickson 


In honor of the "October is TS 
2068 Month" movement, CATS is 
happy to present the following 
collection of tips, aids, and 
utilities which should prove 
helpful with any TS 2068 
programing. These gems come t 
us from the archives of 
TIMELINEZ and SINC TIMES: 


1. POKE 23609,X 
For keyboard click (x= 1 to 
255). 


2. POKE 23692,2 

Use before every print for 
automatic scrolling. Works like 
the scroll command on the 
1000/1500. 


3. POKE 23692,1 
Another way to control the 
scroll. Scrolls 22 lines, then a key 

must be pressed for every line. 


89 issue of the Capital 


Reprinted from the October 


4. POKE 23658,8 
Puts 2068 in caps mode. 


5. POKE 23658,0 
Takes 2068 out of caps mode. 


6. PAUSE 0 
Pause until any key pressed. 


7. POKE 23561,* (* » 1 to 35) 

Time that a key must be held 
down before it repeats. Prefer 
10-15 for text. 


8. POKE 23562,* (* « 1 to 5) 
Delay between successive 
repeats of a key being held down. 
Use 3 for text. 


9. USR 15002 
Try this to get out of an infinite 
input loop without crashing. 


10. DIM A$ (704) 

PRINT AT 0,0; OVER 1: PAPER 
1; INK 6; A$ 

Allows you to change paper and 
ink color without clearing the screen. 


11. PRINT #1; AT 0,2; “HI" 
PRINT #2; AT 1,5; "BY" 
PAUSE 0 
Prints on lines 22 and 23. 


12. LOAD ""CODE 
RAND USR 33792 
For programs that will not load. 


Area TS Users Group n/l. 


13. LET x-INT(x ! y4.5)/101 y 

Use for rounding: x«number to be 
rounded, y=number of decimal 
places. 


14. 1 DEF FN r(x,y)-INT (x*101 
y*5)/101 y 
2 INPUT "Enter a number Sa 
3 INPUT "Round off to ? ":b 
5 PRINT FN r (a,b) 
Sets the defined function to the 
formula used for rounding off: 
a-number before rounding, 
b=number of decimal places 
desired after rounding. 


15. INPUT LINE A$ 

Prevents computer from placing "" 
on screen when waiting for input. 
Note: Can't use "stop" with this 
system, but cap-shift-6 will stop. Bug 
in system. 


16. PRINT PEEK 236354256 * PEEK 
23636 
Used to find starting address. 


17. PRINT "" 
Gives line feed to print statement. 


18. RANDOMIZE USR 0 
Used to reset computer. 


19. INPUT AT 22.0; AT 10,0; "input 
value"; a$ 
Input at any position on screen. 


20. 1 FOR I=O to 21 
2 FOR X=0 to 31 
3 LPRINT SCREENS (I,X) 
4 NEXT X l 
5 NEXT I ; 
Copy screen to printer without 
using the copy command. 


21. OPEN #2 
Sends all data normally destined for 
the screen to the printer. 


22. CLOSE #2 
Cancels above command. 


23. 1 LET C=2 

2 FOR 1232 to 255 

3 PRINT AT 0,0,"" 

4 PRINT AT 0,0;CHR$ I 

5 IF CODE SCREENS (0,0)-0 
THEN PRINT AT AC: 

CHR4 E LET C=C+2 

6 NEXT I 

Lists characters not recognized by 
the SCREEN$ command. 
24. CLEAR 63255 

Do this first if you plan to use 
UDG"s in a long BASIC program that 
will include a video mode change. A 
bug in the system will allow a long 


BASIC program to overwrite your 
UDG’s if RAMTOP is not lowered 
first. 
25. POKE 23750,0 

If you are using cartridge S/W that 
can be stopped by the break key, this 
will allow you to enter your own basic 
lines into RAM. To return to the 
cartridge ROMware, POKE 
23750,128. 


26. POKE 23693,56 
To give starting ink color. 


27. BASIC STARTS AT 26710. 
Explains itself. 


28. CAPS SHIFT 3 
Scroll two screens when listing. 


29. POKE 26711,0 
Gives line number 0. POKE 
26711,1 to change line 0 to 1. 


30. POKE 23659,0 

To use all 24 lines (making a 
program unstoppable), POKE 23659, 
2 resets. (Use with "inkeys" only, 
INPUT resets.) 


31. POKE 26710,255 

Used to make lines disappear 
(makes line NO. over 9999). POKE 
26710,0 will reset. 


32. INK OR PAPER 9 
Gives contrasting base color. 


33. 'E' MODE/CAPS SHIFT AND A 
COLOR 1-7 
Gives ink color in listing. 


34. "E" MODE/UNSHIFTED AND A 
COLOR 1 - 7 

Gives paper color (go back to 
original color at the end of the line; if 
not, all the lines will be the same 
color). 


35. 1 INPUT "COMMENT"; A$; 
CHR$ 13; "COMMENT"; B$ 
2 PRINT "COMMENT"; A$; 
CHR$; 13; "COMMENT"; B$ 
Example of double inputs. 


36. 9000 for I=I to 200 

9010 BORDER 1:BORDER 
2: BORDER 3:BORDER 4:BORDER 
5:BORDER 6:BORDER 0:BORDER 
PAUSE 1 

9020 NEXT I:RETURN 

Go sub9000 for a striped border. 


37. POKE 23617,236 
Used to get a question mark cursor 
displayed in input statements. 


38 Print 40; COMMENT"*;PAUSE 0 
Use to print on line 24. 


Reprinted from the July/Aug 90 issue of "The 


Plotter" the n/l of the CCAT/S User Group. 


PRODUCT REVIEW 

SPECTRUM EMULATOR FOR 2068 
BY Jack Dohany 

PRICE: $15.00 * $3.00 8 & H 


There have been several Spectrum 
emulators on the market over the 
years. It seems that once the 
subject is covered it is old news. 
This one simply replaces the 
original 2068 ROM with an error- 
corrected Timex Sinclair-Spectrum 
ROM. The EPROM 
operating program in separate 16K 
sections. The selection is by an 
installed switch. 


Mechanically, some work is required 
on the computer to make the change. 
The top cover is removed and the 
switch installation is made in the 
bottom case next to the right game 
Dort. This requires drilling 2 
small screw holes plus cutting out 
a slot for the switch slide. 


The original ROM is removed and 
replaced with the new one. 
Instructions are explicit for this 
plus the switch installation and a 
small soldering job. 


There are two jumpers about in the 
middle of the circuit board labeled 
Wl and W2 that require cutting a 


carries each 


20 


lead of each. The soldered in leads 
can be removed from the top side 
but it requires only 3 screws to be 
removed and a better job can be 
done from the trace side. A 2 diode 
prewired insert is provided for 
replacement. The leads are even 
nicely bent to fit. This unit has 
3 leads. 


It is sure nice to do editing of 
long lines and not have the cursor 
stumble on the DELETE. Part of this 
change requires DELETE to be 
obtained with Ss+0 in place of 
CS+0. Erase is still with CS+0. The 
cursor rips along as it should. 


Thus for $18.00 (order other 
products and save $3.00) you get an 
emulator that works with Larken and 
Oliger drives without software. Now 
I can use the Larken system in 
Spectrum mode as the cartridge port 
is free. These 2 systems can be 


1nitialized and used at will in 


either mode. However, the computer 
must be turned on in either 
Sinclair or Spectrum mode. 


Send to Jack Dohany 

390 Rutherford Ave. 

Redwood City, CA 94061 for details 
and ordering information. 


By: Dick Wagner 


Reprinte 


In 


lè VOLT HODIFICRT OH 


This little mod, helps clean 
up the picture and the con- 
puter runs cooler, especially if 
you have more than one 
peripheral attached, 

Using proper care open your 
beloved 2068, Using figure tt, 
find the 18L12 voltage reg- 
ulator, It looks Tike an 
ordinary transister (only good 
for millianps), Using great care 
renove it, Hake sure the holes 
are cleaned out, Hou install the 
19H12 (larger for more current), 
Radio Shack part 4216-1771 about 
$1,280, Use figure #2, note that 
it is the BACK of the regulator 
that should be facing up, 

Hou for the test, 
everything away fron the cir- 
cuit board, uithout the keyboard 
attached, pouer up. Your 2868 
should display the copyright 


notice, If it does not, pouer 
off imnediately!! Check the 


orientation of the 7812. If you 
have a volt meter check the 
input and output, 

After all goes well put your 
2068 back together and gaze into 
your nice clean picture, 


By William E. MCKeluey 


Hove | 


INSIDE YOUR 2068 


RF MODULATOR 


Joystick | 
ET ge. 


Figure $1 


RF MODULATOR 


Joystick 
UL ae. 


78H12 OUT 
back is facing UP 


Figure #2 


Inspired by Tim Stoddard 


TIME DESIGNS Vol.3 No.5 


rinted from the Jan/Feb 90 issue of th 
diana T/S Newsletter ` 


21 


HARING THE 
LOGOZAXKXIFI 
EVEN 


SETE 


Reprinted from the Jan 90 issue of SWYM, the n/! 
of the Seattle Area T/S Users Group. 


ZG da Zeene Fosk 

Those of you reading this art- 
icle who are users of the Z2X—81 
must be the world’s most patient 
people or are already using some 
of the improvements on your com- 
vutenr. 

The ZX—81 was designed to be 
marketed as an entru-level com— 
puter. Thus, the small memory, 
the use of a TU f or a display 
and the use of a portable, mono- 
Phonic tape recorder for perma-— 
nent. storage. Many optional add 
ons are available to the ouner 
who wishes to go beyond the min- 
imal machine. The use of a TU 


was a reasonable decision be- 
cause of the relatively high 
price of a monitor. But, by let- 
ting the owner use any tape pre- 
corder available, Sinclair lost 
control of the quality of the 
resulting system. The tape IZO 


had to be made slow in order to 
acheive any degree of reliabil-— 
ity. 

When I first tried my computer, 
I read all the instructions in 


the user manual and those sug- 
gestions provided with the com— 
. mercial programs. When loading 


the small programs into a 2k 
memory, there were few problems. 
As the programs got larger, to 
fill my add-on, 16K memory, the 
problem frequency increased. A— 
bout this time,I joined the com- 
puter club and many helpful sug- 
gestions were received. I tried 
various volume settings, tone 
control variations, removing the 
"eap" connection when LOADing 
and the "mic" when SAVEing, but 
problems persisted. Head align- 
ment was not the problem, either 
because I could read commercial 
tapes much better than those I 
had written. This was my first 
Productive clue towards solving 
the problems. By examining the 
output of commercial tapes with 
an oscilloscope and comparing 
them with the tapes written by 


22 


the computer, a nice pattern of 
square waves showed from the 
commercial tape with higher amp- 


litudes, versus distorted square 
waves with much electrical 
"noise" on the home-grown 


versions. In an effort to get a 


high enough amplitude from a 
weak signal, I was amplifying 
the noise, as well. Referring to 


Fig.1 on the next page, the so- 
lution was to reduce the resist- 
ance of R29 by parallelling it 
with Re9A and adding CIZA across 
Gifs These changes permitted me 
to record at a lower level,where 
distortion was less and the 
square wave signal was much lar- 
ger than the noise. 

When reading tapes into the 
computer, I found the signal was 
greatly attenuated before reach- 
ing pin 20 on the Sinclair Logic 
Array. This was caused by the 
low resistance of R34, shunting 
it to ground, so I replaced the 
&10—ohm resistor with a 4700-ohm 
resistor I call R34A. These 
changes solved all my tape reli- 


ability problems. However, the 
component values used in these 
changes may not be the best for 


should be 
eliminate 


your tape recorder but 
a starting place to 
the problems. 

I was also being bothered by 
the large TU I was using and the 
Jittery, waving lines displayed 
on it. I obtained a used mon- 
itor and attached it as shown on 
the schematic, using a single- 
pole-double-throw switch, a re- 
Sistor, an NPN transistor and an 
extra RCA jack. This was a great 
improvement, but there were still 
a wavy pattern on the face of 
the tube, when I was using the 
16K add-on memory. It turns out 
that it was caused bu the oscil- 
lator in the memory feeding back 
on the S-volt power buss. Put- 
ting C4A across C4 solved this 
and now the display is steady as 
a rock. 

Another useful change, mention- 
ed in several articles, is to 


add a reset switch SO that it 
isn’t necessary to pull the 9 -— 
volt plug or shut off the DC 


power to clear the computer when 
it hangs up. This is shown con- 
nected to the junction of Ri5S/C5S 
and pin 26 of the 280A, which 
also goes to the edge connector. 
This should be a normally-—open 
momentary-contact switch. 


= a e 
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118 IF x5-255 GE xi(-8 THEH LET 
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133 EEH ABT 
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GHIZE . LET IHE-IHT (HND#7:): BOR 
DER PAPER: CLS : PAPER PAPER: L 
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GO TB 287 
285 IF INK(S ANN IHE-PAPER THER 
LET INK-INK+3: IBE IHK: CLS : G 
G TG 218 
BH IF THKCOPAPER THEN 60 TO 21 
288 LET IHK-INK+I: IHK IHK: CLS 
Sebz^dl issue Harrisbura ares 218 LET a-IHT (EHDE255): LET b= 
lisex Sinclair Users Group news IHT (EHNDÈITS) 
letter HATS. ` 228 LET x-IHT (ENBEZSS): LET y= 
2 FOR @=1 TO 25 INT (END£1T5) . 
3 50 TO 288 238 LET al-2: LET bi-2: LET xi-= 
48 60 TO 58 4: LET yl=4 
68 FOR z-l TO 288 248 60 TO 68 
52 PLOT a,b: DRAW x-a,y-b 338 STOP 
78 LET a=atal: LET b-bthl _#33 PRINT f4: SAGE "BET.H1" LIH 
88 LET x-xtxl: LET u-ytul E 
188 IF a>=255 op at=6 THEN LET SESS PORER P: -INK 7 


WILL ERASABLE OPTICAL DISKS REPLACE HARD DISKS? 


HE INTRODUCTION OF 

the Next Computer with a 
Canon Inc. 5.25-in. erasable optical 
drive as its primary storage surprised 
many. Erasable optical disks are still 
two to six times slower than hard 
disks for most tasks, and Next Com- 
puter Inc. has added a 40-Mbyte “ac- 
celerator" hard-disk drive to speed 
things up. Even Next concedes that 
faster optical drives are needed if op- 
tical is to be used as primary storage, 
although the Redwood City, Calif., 
company plans to stick for now with 
the Canon unit. 

To challenge hard disks in desktop 
and fileserver machines, rewritable 
optical technologies must leap several 
hurdles. One is eliminating “two- 
pass” writing, in which the drive 
must perform two passes over the 
disk—first to erase by writing Os 
where the new data will go and then 
Is to represent the data. Achieving 
what is called direct overwrite and 
shrinking the weight of the read/ 
write head will boost speed. Also, 
“we need to spin the disk faster, push 
the data through the [input/output] 
channel faster, and put both sides on 


line,” says Jay Bretzmann, senior mar- 
ket analyst at International Data 
Corp., Framingham, Mass. 

“Five years from now we'll see 
new types of direct-overwrite materi- 
als—either magneto optical or phase 
change,” says Gordon Knight, vice 
president of engineering at Maxoptix, 
San Jose, Calif. Phase change, an al- 
ternative erasable optical technology, 
still lacks infinite erasability, Knight 
points out. Rather than rely on mag- 
netics to record bits, in phase change 
the writing laser heats spots on a met- 
al layer in the disk, changing them 
from an amorphous to a crystalline 
state and back again. 

"Erasable optical can't compete with 
Winchesters until the mid-1990s," con- 
curs Barry Donahue, vice president of 
Toshiba America's Disk Product Divi- 
sion in Irvine, Calif. "Two-pass erasable 
is niche-market-oriented, and on-pass 
rewritable is three years away." He says 
the company is working with two oth- 
er technologies, but declines to say 
what they are. 

Besides undergoing technological 
changes, optical drives are headed for 
smaller sizes. Several companies, IBM 


ELECTRONICS € MARCH 1990 


Corp. and Sony Corp. among them, 
are working on one-sided 3.5-in. 
units. The disks, which hold about 
120 Mbytes, seemed aimed squarely 
at the desktop. 

Notwithstanding the obstacles, 
drive makers and system manufactur. 
ers are optimistic about optical's pros- 
pects. "Within the next five years, 
rewritable optical will meet or exceed 
the performance of today's hard 
disks," says Bob Mueller, vice presi- 
dent of Sony America Corp.'s Rewrita- 
ble Optical Products Division in Park 
Ridge, N. J. For one thing, hard disks 
are close to reaching the upper limits 
of their capacity in terms of density, 
and optical is not. 

To users, optical offers the lure of 
potentially huge capacity and ease of 
use for archiving, imaging, and other 
tasks. "Some studies show that 9796 
of all the information in the world is 
off line on either microfiche or pa- 
per," says Bill Boles, product manag- 
er for Hewlett-Packard Co.'s Greeley 
Storage Division in Greeley, Colo. 
"There's a huge opportunity for keep- 
ing that data on line in an optical 
storage medium.”—S. V. T. 


QL Australia June 1990 
QDOS vs Other Operating Systems 


The QL is over seven years old now and 
many of you well be Jabouring under the 
belief that the QL’s operating system, 
QDOS (QL Disk Operating System), may 
be a little lacking in capability and 
features. It is certainly true that it doesn’t 
have that many bells and whistles when 
compared with the latest offerings in the 
microcomputer world, but the basic 
system was very impressive for its time. 
Over the next few months I'll be looking 
at some of QDOSs features in detail. 


So what does QDOS have to offer? The 
first amazing feature is (I'll be using 
present tense throughout this entire 
article) multitasking. Some of you no 
doubt are asking... what is multitasking? 


It will not surprise any of you that a 
computer’s CPU is capable of only doing 
one thing (or instruction) at any one 
instant... [For the pedants out there, I'll 
only be considering single processor 
systems in this article.) However a 
microprocessor can operate at speeds 
usually measured in hundreds of 
thousands (or even millions) of 
instructions per second, and thus it is 
possible to make it seem (to the user, or 
maybe even users) that the CPU is doing 
more than one thing at a time. This is 
achieved by time-slicing the CPU. 


At a fixed interval, which on the QL is at 
the TV/monitor vertical sync rate, 50 Hz 
(in the US it is 60 Hz), the CPU is 
interrupted. A special piece of code, 
known as the scheduler, looks at all of the 
jobs in the machine and determines (using 
priorities) which one should get the next 
time slice. [If there is only one job then 
this job will get the CPU all to itself.] 1f 
the scheduler decides that another job: 
should have a turn, then it performs a 
context switch. This means that the 
operating system will save the contents of 
al registers for the current job 
somewhere in memory, and then reload 
the registers with the previously saved 
state of the other job that is about to be 
run. Each job proceeds as though it has 
the CPU all to itself, and it is the 
responsibility of the operating system to 
perform all of the necessary housekeeping 
to keep everything running smoothly. 


This setup would be fine if each job only 
required the CPU and did not have any 
real world contact, ie input/output. What 
should happen when a job is waiting for 
input (or even output, eg. microdrives)? 
Should the CPU go into a loop waiting 
for the input to appear, or is it possible to 
let the CPU get on with something 


constructive. What most proper operating : 


systems (including QDOS) will do is 
mark the job as ‘waiting for I/O’. This 
means that the scheduler will not consider 
the job at the next interrupt. The job will 
be reconsidered for a time-slice only 


when the UO is ready (ie for reads: the 
data is waiting, and for writes: the data 
has been written). This method of 
operation ensures that the CPU is always 
being used for real work... 


There are other problems as well... 
Should a job be able to access memory (ie 
RAM) apart from the area directly used 
by itself? In most cases the answer will be 
no and so we need some way of stopping 
such illegal accesses. This requires 
hardware, typically in the CPU. The 
operating system, before passing 
execution back to a user program (the one 
which is about to get the next time-slice), 
sets up the memory limits for the job. 
Should the job attempt to access memory 
outside of these limits then a special 
interrupt, usually called a Illegal Access 
Exception (or perhaps a Segmentation 
Violation), will occur. At this point the 
operating system will intervene and 
remove the offending job.. It is not 
possible for the job to change the memory 
limits because this is something that only 
the operating system can do. [In fact an 
attempt to do so would cause another 
special interrupt - a Privilege Violation!] 
The QL does NOT contain this special 
hardware and thus it is possible to do 


naughty things to other jobs in the QLs 
memory! It also means that faulty jobs 
can crash the machine... 


What are the benefits of multitasking? It 
really is quite useful to be able to do more 
than one thing at once... For example it is 
possible to edit one file whilst compiling 
another.. Another example is that you 
can print a file out on the printer while 
doing something else... [It is true that it is 
possible to print out a file on a MS-DOS 
computer (a non multitasking operating 
system) while doing something else; but 
this requires trickery in the form of 
interrupt catching. The solution is 


nowhere near as elegant as the 
multitasking solution...] 


There is another big feature: of 
multitasking - the ability to create pipes. 
The idea behind pipelines is that to 
perform some task you use a number of 
programs; the data passes through all 
programs in turn. The alternative is to just 
have one BIG program which does 
everything; the problem with big 
programs is that they are difficul/costly 
to write and/or maintain... I'll talk more 
about pipes when I have covered input 
and output, which I'll probably talk about 
next month. 


Lastly, it must be said that multitasking is 
viewed by software writers as being 
important enough to require a new 
operating system to be released... OS/2 
was developed for two reasons... (a) 
multitasking, and (b) a more standard 
windowing environment. 


David Burns 


25 


26 


PCCFA 


Yes, the Pacific Coast Computer Fair Association lives. Following our membership 
drive this spring, enough new members joined the PCCFA to allow the association to 
continue. The first project of the new, improved PCCFA will be the 1990 Pacific 
Coast Computer Fair. What we need most right now is publicity, so please pass the 
following information to the members of your group and anybody else who might be 
interested. 


The 1990 Pacific Coast Computer Fair and Swap Meet will be held on Saturday 
October 20th at the McPherson Centre, one week later than we originally planned. 
The Fair will feature the usual swap meet and user group tables and a (we hope) a 
variety of interesting speakers. Since this is the tenth anniversary of our first 
computer fair, we are also working on a few things to make this year's fair something 
a little bit special. 


As you are probably aware, the Pacific Coast Computer Fair is organized by the 
Pacific Coast Computer Fair Association, a non-profit group of computer users. We 
are always looking for volunteers to help in planning our events or at the events 
themselves. Anyone interested in participating in the association is invited to call me 
at 421-6535 (home). 


Since past experience shows that the computer fair always seems to arrive a month 
before we expect it, it is never too early to begin planning your user group display. 
As always, we will be providing tables for non-commercial user group displays at no 
charge. Your group’s representative(s) in the PCCFA will be handling most of the 
coordination between your group and the association. If you do not have a 
representative regularly attending PCCFA meetings, we urge you to find one, since 
user group representation in the association is vital if the PCCFA is to be responsive 
to your needs. If you simply cannot find someone to attend the meetings (or if you 
have any questions), please contact me at the number given above. 


Finally, you may have heard of an event being billed as the "Computer Fest and Swap 
Meet", which is scheduled to take place at the end of September at the McPherson 
Centre. Despite the similarities of date, location, and even name, this event is in no 
way associated with the Pacific Coast Computer Fair or the PCCFA. It is a 
commercial venture being run by the same people who held shows at the old Expo site 
last fall and McPherson Centre last spring. We expect to see a lot of confusion 
regarding these two events, so we are asking you to help spread the word. 


If you have any questions about the Fair or the PCCFA that are not answered by this 
letter or the enclosed flyer, please call me at 421-6535. — 


Brian Smith 


PACIFIC COAST COMPUTER FAIR ASSOCIATION 
P.O. BOX 80866 SOUTH BURNABY POST OFFICE. B.C. CANADA V5H 3Y 


"Me Original 
4 PACIFIC 


COAST 
GR Lang COMPUTER 
ZC REA FAIR A 


OCTOBER 20th 


M eee 
Me 


Ge Nee L LAKE KEK EN LORELEI 


4325 MCPHERSON AVENUE, BURNABY, B.C. 
. FEATURING 


e Speakers 

e User Groups 

e Door Prizes M" z | 
* New & Used Equipment ECT 

e Cake 8 Refreshments | 


GENERAL ADMISSION ONLY $2 


SPONSORED BY THE 
TABLES PACIFIC COAST 


$25 Before October 1 COMPUTER FAIR 
. $35 Thereafter ASSOCIATION 


TABLE PRE-REGISTRATION 
PHONE: 590-4588 INFO LINE: 879-9871 


ACCESS 
27 


The last three 
rautine are missi 


instructions in this 
ng from the “keyboard 


test" article that | submitted for the 
March ‘90 newsletter. 


print call inkey 


cp stop 
jr 2 exit 


cp enter 
jr z nline 


cp rnd 
jr nc print 


Id hl,rcoun 
ld b (hl) 
Id hl flin2 1) 


ld (hl),a 
inc hi 


djnz svpos 


nline call scrii 
jr stpos 


get key. 


;do you want 
sto quit? 


as ita 
newline’? 


sis ita 
jleg! char? 


;get 
;print 
;position. 


;print 
;character. 


jf row is 
;finish, 
sthen 


;make a new 
line. 


Can you add the corrections in the 


next newsletter? 


Vince 


28 


T 


HE QUAINTLY-NAMED Happydays is a 
calendar program which will tell you the day of 
the week for any given date, as long as it falls 


after the introduction of the Julian calendar. That will 
almost certainly include all of our readers' birthdays, SO 
the program is a good opportunity to discover if you are 
merry and gay, or work hard for a living, according to. 
the old rhyme. — ) 

Enter the day and month as figures, and the year in 
full, e.g. 1985. Happydays was written by Hsieh Min 
Hon of Singapore and runs on the ZX-81 in iK. 


PRINT “DAY?” 

INPUT D. - 

PRINT “MONTH?” 

INPUT HM 

PRINT “YEART" Á : 

INPUT Y " 

LET KzINT (.6+(1/M)} 

LET LzY-k 

LET: üzM4i2z2x«kH 

LET FP=L7isd 

LET A=INT. iP/4! 

LET B=INT (Di 

LET C=zINT ( (S#L) 741 

LET E=INT (134(@41) A5) 

LET Z=E+C-B+A+D-1 - ` 

L Pe (Fo ( FEIN (277) 33 42 
PhINT SA Sr S = 
IF Z-i THEN PRINT “SUNDAY” 
IF Zz2 THEN PRINT “MONDAY” 
IF Z=3 THEN PRINT "TUESDHY" 
IF Z-4 THEN PRINT “WEDNESDA 
IF Z-4 THEN PRINT “THURSDAY 
IF Z=5 THEN PRINT “FRIDAY - 
IF Zap THEN PRINT "SHTURDHY 
al OK 


- oT e, -— 
d mT mä 
Af: dap ale Ai $33 


H £f. = = LI 
i wx z z : £. i- E i 
ki ee — - - A 
ES sa pa Le * i T 3 Zem — 
Z sere n T "X d E 
a ZS P. i le M AČ O F i 

ge = f m = z -— 
Es = ge i: H H 3 8 E 
ds Ben 2 a" i = - — — 
= fi Sp g bs = m. as H 
cl se A. i " C L T. = i7 
yen, ye i f T we 
Yon H i : Ll T 3 
is 1 i i 5. Se d > S 
i od ETC SB T = T £i 
-— bw Te dan Bn A p H Send 
dE kA D = i = = = ii 
accu. PO 12 — LO Fi X o" r l 
: 7 z ORBE p Si GI ii 

m" -i — i i i = n 
du vm = a ES ECTS 
uw. $T" fj SA d = Zä H F 
wi -— — — — -— 3 

sé . ER d 
n a Se, iis, = - c= Liz ata 7T 

Wetz ii? dz Hit- 3648 at 
Dol re e mro 
iii €cLtluiil, 

PII TAL DR IZONTAJ 
VERT ALHL;, HOR LZlin i Hi a 
anni A Zë ra e = FOR annm 
BHOKLBHBBEBDS & FORWARDS. 
= = gie 
3" ZZ ZZ Ef EH Se fa fa A Tr x 
ge 2 D se. 

PRE HIDDEN LGRIT E ` 
MI si oT ge = fi s. 
z z 4380529" D GEI = 
San — — > kn — -— i M 
da: PA, gu» AA, FRA SA b d a 4 
JFELIU LADI 
TT: iilii 

i Eri £ Ri 


“ye 
Z4 
“AE 
f wf 
7 CC 
Leo 
152 
_— De F, 


5i 


kè uc 


C fa 


m m 
S do FO F G2 


3 CT f C 


r 


ca EE EE EDE EE EE EE ECL E (3 


: (I1 CII C3 CI] GO E CA Fo 63 UT E C 
nuc 


D 
bw o a 


kb PPP EU IO Co CO 9 «d CTI CTI CIT CI] fe 


p nox mo po po po Fo Ee pou 


- Om 


e a 


TT 


d 


(m 


H 


FORE 22658,8 

REM 

Remove line 50 if y 
the hidden words ta 
in smail tetters.Th 
RELE in debugging 

CI S 

BORDER 656: PAPER e 

CLS 

PRINT AT 8,0; INK 2; 
IDDEH LUORD" 

PRINT INK 3;" 

ERHTOR" 77- 

XE 


4PUT 
K. JMR 
iF HR +22 THEN E 
INPUT “HOU MANY 
MAX." MC 
AF MC5S16 
LET. 
LEI 
LET. 
LET 
LET 


“HOW MANY 


THEN GO 
NC=MRENC 

P == a» 05 e 

Kaz" 

Dgz'' H 

HL = 


DIM M$IMR,MC) 
DIM L$ISQ,16) 
DIM (20,21 
D IM (35,2) 


CIM 
CIM 
CIM 
CLS 
LET 
LET. 
LET NU=NU4i 
CLS 

PRINT “GRID 
L; d e 
PRINT “You 
WORDS" ’ < 


HAY 


a 


f 3 


M gp c 
Ti 


er (ON Ou 


ge, 
mm 


emm DI 


2455 PRINT “GRID 
100) ; “SO FULL: 
2492 PRINT ,FRESS ENTER TUICE un 
EN FINISHED": - 

25800 PRINT INK 2; "ENTER WORD tZ". 
NU; (HAX. S0)" l 
2525 IF NU»50 THEN PRINT 

PRINT “MAX. 50 WORDS 


IS"; INT (E/NC4 


: PRINT 
US 


EC 3 FRE 


55 ENTER." 

2340 INPUT ES 

ES4S5 IF NUu»50 AND E£-"" THEN GO 
TO 2700 

eSs@ IF Nu»28 AND Eg$z:"" THEN CL 
o : PRINT AT ZK. 8, “YOU MAY NOT U 
SE MORE THAN Sa WORDS. RUN TH 
= PROGRAM AGAIN.": PAUSE 288: Ru 


N se 


2551 LET RNU, li =NWU LET Rikti,2i 
sl EN E$ 
eSSe LET RINU, 43) 2NU;: LET BIM är? 
LEM E$ 
29943 LET LIS (NUI -E £ 
2554 LET E=E+LEN (E$) 
2600 IF WS(NuU,1)=" " THEN Go TUO 
27288 
2650 cO TO 2482 
2700 LET WU=NLI-1 
2758 FOR I-1 TO 8 READ DiI,i 
READ DiI,2): NEXT I 
2775 REM 
TO make PUZILE ESSiEf hide 
words in antiy 4 diréctians 
Lise 
SO DATA 06,1,1,1,0,.,-1.1i 
O,3,2,4;,1;0,-1 4 
zog) DATA 86,1,1,1,1,0,1,-1.0.-1 
-1,-1,-1,0,-1,1 
2905 LET EST=INT (((NC,/1Q0) 4.83 4 
(6. 7t (NCS (EA/NC) | “1864.63: 3 
sii PRINT AT: 4&,.0;" THE “TIME IT 
TAKES TO COMPLETE THE PUZZLE LI 
L UARY LIITH THE SIZE OF THE G 
ID AND THE HO. OF WORCS LISE OP ae 
= 2; INK 2; "TIME INCREASES GRE 
` FOR LARGER GRIDS OVER 


FULL ai 
i PRINT 
iz PRINT 
« TIME Or “THIS 


mnm To ed oe 


f 
EQ be ZE CL UO KO E A 


ER a 


2358 PRINT AT 15,0; FLASH 1;"83gT 

TING UP THE GRID,PLEASE WAIT" 

30090 FOR I=1 TO HR: FOR J=1 To H 

C: LET M$(I,J)=P$: NEXT J: NEXT 

3050 FOR I=1 TO NC: LET Strip 

MEXT I 

3188 RANDOMIZE 

31580 FOR I-1 To NC 

3288 LET GQ-INT (RNDxNC)-1: IF = 

9) «20 THEN GO TO 32288 is 
258 LET Si(Gi=I 

3300 NEXT I 

3358 FOR I=1 TO NU: LET atrice 

LET UiI)-0: NEXT I 

3400 FOR I-1 TO Hü-1 

3482 LET J=I 

S4Q4 LET T1=R(I+1,1): LET T2=RtI 

+1,2) 

3406 IF T2«R(J,2) THEN Go TO 3441 


AR LET JsJ- 
Si IF necs THEN GO TO 3485 
3414 LET RiJr1,2) =7 2 LET Rigel 
nS Bee ee 
Odio NEXT i 
3558 FOR I=1 Ta NU 
3562 LET Q(I)sR(I,1) 
3954 NEXT. I 
36900 LET HME seg: LET WASNW: LET FU 
zo. LET DIZI 
3558 PRINT HT 15,8; INK =; 
“STARTING TO FILL THE GRIDC!"'': 
3798 FOR N=l TO NCO 


3750 LET CPR=SIN). . 
3888 LET. CR=INT 0((CP-1)»7HMC)4i: L 
ET CC=zCP-(CR-I) =HC ` 
3850 IF RE CO) PS THEN GO TO 
7000 
3900 IM WA= a THEN LET Hrz8: GO T 
O 6950 

3950 LET M$ICR, CC) =Kò 
4888 LET DK=1 
4050 LET IR= DDI, 43: 


La, 


an" 


LET IC=DI(DI 


21 
4102 LET RT=1: EE: iR<@ THEN LET 
RT=MR - 


4150 IF IR=@ THEN LET RT-CR 
4200 LET CT-1: IF IC«B THEN LET 
MC : 

4250 IF IC=@ THEN LET CT-CC 

4380 LET BR=CR: LET BC-CC 

4358 IF (BR-RT AND IR::8) OR (BC 
=CT AND IC<>@) THEN GO TO 4600 
4400 REM GO TO 1589 

44580 LET BR=BR-IR - 

4580 LET BC=BC-IC. 

4558 GO TO 4350 | 
4600. LET RT-1: IF IR:8 THEN LET. 
RT-zMR | SC 
48650 IF IR=@ THEN LET AT=CR 
47800 LET CT=1: IF IC»8 THEN LET 
LT MG. 

4750 IF IC-0 THEN LET CT=CC 
4800 LET ER=CR: LET EC=CC 

4858 IF. (ER-RT AND IR:»8! OR (EC 
=CT AND IC<>@) THEN GO TO 5052 
4888 LET ER=ER+IR 

4358 LET EC=EC+IC 

5220 cO TO 4352 


20580 LET UR=ER: IF BR>ER THEN LE 


T UR=BR. | 
5190 LET LR=BR: IF ER:BR THEN LE 


5150 LET UC=EC: IF BC>EC THEN LE 
5200 LET LC=BC: IF EC:BC THEN LE 


3259 LET PR=BR: LET PC-BC: LET 5 

538080 LET X$-X5&4H$(PR,PC) 

S350 LET PR=PR+IR: LET PC-PC«IC 
IF PR>=LR AND PRIzUR AND PC:=LO 
AND PC«=UC THEN GO TO 5388 

5400 LET PL=LEN (X5) 

S452 LET goO=1 

S454 LET O$=X$ 

S456 LET RA$=kKò 

S458 GO SUB 5452 

5450 LET Dapp 

S451 GO TO S300 

S452 LET oF=a 

S454 IF LEN í(R$)-0 THEN RETURI 

S456 IF QO4LEM (R$1-13LEN (as? T 

HEN RETURN. .. 


2452 IF Q$(00 TO 804LEN iR5)-1)- 
R$ THEN GO To 5474 

24720 LET QDQ=00+1 

5472 GO TO 5466 

5474 LET üF-üD 

S475 RETURN 

5500 FOR L=1 TO P: FOR R=PL To P 


S558 LET CH=x$i 
: LET CL=LEN 1 
5508 LET O=1 


. 5658 LET W=O(o) 
97988 FOR K=1 TO 15 
LI K sa 
C 


57801 IF HS, Ri = EBEN NEXT K 
9702 IF K-1<>CL THEN LET MF=2: G 


5750 LET MF=1 
45888 FOR C-1 TO CL 
3850 IF C$iC) 


| =P$ OR C$iC)zK£$ THE 
N GO TO 5950 


5900 IF C$ (CC) «»usiu, 
LET ME sp 


THEN LET 


58580 NEXT C 


6000 IF MF=O THEN GO TO 67590 
6050 LET .F5$zUS&(U,1 TO C-1) 


. 6100 IF L»1 THEN LET F$=D$4+F8: L 


ET L=L-1: GO TO 6120. ` 
5150 IF R«PL.THEN LET Fe=F $458: 


LET R=R+1: GO TO 6152 
6200 LET PRz1: LET R=BR: LET Cap 
C. 


5250 LET Y$= FSiPR TO PR+1- D IF. 
Y$=D$ THEN GO TO 6350 


(6300 LET M#IR,Cl=¥s 


([R=ER AND IRi>0) OR (C=E 


63508. IF- 
EC AND IC«»0) THEN GO TO 5450 X 
5488 LET C=C4iC: LET R=R4IR: LET 
PR=PR4+1: GO TO 52590 
5458 IF @=WiA THEN GO TO 6558 
6508. FOR I=O TO WA-1I: LET íI? =ğ 
Se SSO As NEXT I , 
Gu LET WAsUA-1 
GGG LET UW) =i 
6650 LET R=P:° LET L=P: LET DK =8 
07800 POKE- 23692, 255: PRINT “USED 
WORD “; NH- ig ie ae NUJ” "HIH: 


GO TO 68898 

e758 LET O =O+1: IF QzzuH 
=< TE. S6589- 

5388 NEXT R: NEXT L 

5358 LET DI-zDI-i: LET DK-zDK-1: I 
F -DEJO THEN LET DIS 

52809 IF DR «=3 THEN pe TO 485 


THEN GO 


6950 IF HE zw THEN LET We 
CHRS (INT iRHDs25)-4521: LET FUsr 
4+1: POKE. 23692,255: PRINT "USED 
A FILL CHHR..";NC-N: GO TU 7828 
7000 PRINT “CELLS NOT YET EXHM. 
'; NC-N 
7650 HEXT M 
7893 BEEP 2,38 
7180 CES | 
7150 RINT RT 23,9; FLASH 3 IHK 
3; "PUZZLE COMPLETED" -77 
7388 PRINT TAB Z; PRIHTER AND DI 
SPLHY SECTION" =~ 
7588 PRINT 
UHERE DO YOU UISH THE PUZZLE 
SENE TI 
7700 PRINT TAB 4;"(1) SCREEN DIS 
PLAY. ONLY’ 
7800 PRINT TAB 4; ” {2 SEND TO PR 


INTER ONLY" 


A388 PRINT 


aoe E, TAB 4;"(3) SCREEN AN 83952 IF Ag<:"2" THEN PRINT 
Dee — ano te Wë VERTICAL, HORIZONTAL, DIRHGONHBI 
S650 PRINT “(ENTER 1,2 or 31° BACKURADS & FüRUBRDZ," Cass 
81580 INPUT. Ag 9953 IF A$4:"1" THEN LPRINT : LP 
8;; OVER i;” LEE TAB - 
SEI e VERTICAL, HORIZONTAL, DIAGONA: 
bo ee E GM TU PRO AN eae Ge BACKUARDS & FORUBRDS." di 
Seis IF Dë: = THEN PRINT AT 15 S960 IF A¢<>"2" THEN PRINT PRI 
E ANB 27 OUER lj uev MT "THE HIDDEN WORDS ARÈ:": PORE 
d : PAUSE i28: GO TO 2258 23692,255 ido A e E Sò 
S220 IF Ag="3" THEN PRINT AT 18 SOS] IF Gee."4" THEN |! DRTHT == 
8; INK 2; OUER 1;" RINT "THE HIDOCEN WORDS ARE. Gli 
- : PAUSE 128: GO TO 2488 9962 IF Ag<>"S" THEN PRINT ate 
8358 Go TO sese t 255020,088 . TDN tT 
3400 CLS GRATIE NAT 
Eig. RE "cp OS62 IF H£:2"1" THEN LPRINT 
2450 FOR T=1 TO HR e264 For 1 To HU : i 
2350 PRINT HIT, i TO ME? S966 IF Ui(I sa PHEN £0 TA oot: 
8750 NEXT T 3367 ca TO EE i MOI is i Sera 
8754 PRINT 9970 NEXT I  . 
8755 IF Ag="1" THEN GO TO 9958 9972 GO TO 9958 
8358 FOR T=1 TO HR 9974 IF AG<¢:"2" THEN PRINT HET: 
28851 LET Us= Kees TR H I i f iii 3 : Ex PI i os kou 
8352 FOR C-1 TO MC Dëse IF ¿nan THEN IL DEEN Gert 
6854 LET Usseseng it, 23 Yrft IF .H$O»"1" THEN LPRINT Weil 
Ch d D 2: 2: Z 
8855 LET Uuëzugéi ' 9976 GO TO 5270 
S656 NEXT C 29388 PRINT 
S8SE LPRINT eo31 IF Ag<>"1" THEN LPRINT 
8868 LPRINT ug 9982 PRINT : PRINT “RETURNE TO M 
8862 NEXT T ENU? (Y or Hi: Ln 
hk IF A¢="2 i HEN GO TO 222i 9984 INPUT As 
9950 PRINT ` SES 9986 IF Ag="Y" THEN GO TO 7120 

YE Words Are Hidden In EIGHT 998838 IF A¢<>o"N" THEN GO TO 39852 
Directions 9997 STOP . de 
9951 IF Aer” THEN LPRINT LP 998 CLEAR SAVE “HideRuord”’ LI 


The Words Are dee 
Directions. 


ZXWORD 


Hidden In 


by Henry 
Howartii | 


. Exchange for wasp (4) 
. Modem perhaps unwelcome when called in (8) 
. Aixelsyd (8) 
. Following string in the rafters (5) 
. Musical ending of a programmer, by the sound of it (4) 
. Not a logic gate (8) 
. Points to attempt for access (5) 
. Somehow cater for debugging (5) 
. Albino MI expansion? (8) 
. Space for nothing in ROM (4) 
. Stored LED, if corrupted (5) 
HE E m e . Heaven for Nordic gods (8) 
. Royal Exchange with up-market boat to put on che 
Ze 2 SE 
- E B gee Be . Some absurdly irrational number (4) 
imm: 
. A million ruined the game (4) 

. For it must follow in Basic (4) 

. Replace stored information above pen (9) 

. Commanded a pair like (x,y) (7) 

. SI unit of Information Technology? (7) 

. Type of number encountered at junior school (7) 

. Input digit for key-strokes? (6) ` 

. EOF as office wastebin, perhaps (3,2,4) 

. Spin to tear (6) 

. Strings as substring of both read statements? (7) 

. Imperative statement (7) 

. Where to browse to get your routines? (7) 

. Large in amplitude (4) 

. Cut into little bits what are unfair when loaded (4) 


solution on page 110 


ZXWORD 


SOLUTION 


T»mooo0o-nm-o0»10 


1. Mega 

2. NEXT 

3. Overwrite 
4. Ordered 
5. Silicon 

6. Primary 
10. Finger, 
13. End of file 
14. Rotate 
16. Command 
17. Library 
21. Loud 


15. Threads 
22. Dice 


Down 


5. Swap 
7. Receiver 
8. Dyslexia 
9. After 
11. Coda 
12. Inverter 
13. Entry 
15. Trace 
18. Binomial 
19. Room 
20. Filed 
23. Valhalla 
24. Relaunch 
25. Surd 


Across 


The Vancouver Sinclair Users Group has been in existence since 
1982. We are a support group for the owners and users of all 
SINCLAIR and TIMEX computers. 


Prez:- Gerd Breunung PH (604) 931-5509 
V/Prez & N/L Publisher: Rusty Townsend 
Scribe:- Harvey Taylor 

Treaz. & N/L Editor:- Rod Humphreys 


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